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Wikimanía 2015; Lightbreather ArbCom case
Wikimanía draws to a close
Wikimanía 2015 drew to a close in Mexico City, Mexico. An "annual conference celebrating Wikipedia and its sister free knowledge projects", Wikimania features remarks from some leading players from the Wikimedia Foundation as well as the free knowledge movement. Overall, most attendees "were really quite impressed with how smoothly the conference went", according to Andrew Lih, who added that in terms of food and venue it was much like a corporate conference.
WMF executive director Lila Tretikov gave a presentation entitled United in Knowledge in which she encouraged Wikimedians to "be bold, break your own rules", much to the chagrin of some attendees, who view that as a misinterpretation of WP:BOLD and WP:BRD. Lih said that although the speech was somewhat unrefined, it is difficult to communicate effectively with newbies and veterans simultaneously. "I do think Lila needs a few more of these before she gets her message calibrated and seasoned", he said. "Part of it is English as her second language, and part of it is that we have a real demanding community."
Additional reaction to the keynote speeches is in this week's Wikimanía report from Peaceray, a conference attendee.
Perhaps the biggest downside, according to Lih, was the lack of video recording; only keynote speeches were recorded, leaving attendees to do their best with limited equipment – many of them expressing outrage on the special Wikimania mailing list and Twitter at what they felt was an unconscionable oversight. Speaking to the value of video recording, Lih wrote,
| “ | When a Wikipedian in Residence can show their institution the video of their Wikimania presentation as evidence of impact and engagement, it can lead to renewal of their positions and more initiatives. When the video of a Wikimania panel on COI and PR editing can convince more multi-billion dollar PR firm to understand our guidelines and terms of use, that's a major outcome. When someone talks about Wiki Loves Earth, #100wikidays or other grassroots projects, video provides a unique window into the emotions and motivations you cannot capture in a mailing list or blog post. When in 10 years, we want to know the passions and personalities that led us to where the movement is, where will we look? If we're expecting Wikimania videos to rack up the same views as LOLcats, it ain't going to happen. It has always been a very small core community does a massive amount of the innovation and work that keeps the projects going, and the ability to talk to each other in deep, complex and accessible ways is vital. | ” |
Even WMF staffer Asaf Bartov expressed agreement that the lack of video recording was problematic. The issue was even raised in June, but received no reply, something Hydriz called "rather disappointing." Other posts focused on the perceived value of video when weighed against the cost. On Twitter, one tweet bemoaned, "I thought the idea of video recording sessions was that you dont [sic] have to (go) yourself."
Ultimately, some sessions were recorded in audio only, and others with smartphone video capabilities, and posted to YouTube. At this point, it is unknown who is at fault for the lack of video, but Lih says that Ivan Martinez, the event's local coordinator, told him that "hiring the hotel or local team to do it professionally would have been very expensive", so the plan was for the WMF to handle it. Unconfirmed reports are that the staffer who was supposed to be in charge of that aspect of the conference is no longer employed by WMF. The Signpost emailed Ellie Young, the WMF's conference coordinator, multiple times seeking comment on this and other aspects of the conference. We received no response.
However, on the mailing list, WMF storyteller Victor Grigas reported that based on his conversations with "the team doing video recordings", only certain talks would be recorded because last year it was expensive to record everything, something he emphasized was not his decision. More interestingly, he said, "All the footage that the video team is shooting will be owned (copyright) by Wikimedia Mexico per their contract, so if there are particular clips you want later, contact WMMX." WMF was unable to clarify the remarks due to multiple staff vacations. The Signpost will run a follow-up story next week.
The conference was also not without technical glitches. According to several attendees in contact with the Signpost, Internet service was down for upwards of 20 minutes at one point. "[T]here seemed to be a major hiccup each day ... but otherwise I'd say it was pretty solid. Compared to other Wikimanias, I'd rate it very good. But all you need is one 20 minute stretch, at a critical time, to ruin your day", Lih said. Other attendees complained that the Internet was slow; a Phabricator ticket indicates at least one problem was rectified.
Other conference highlights included Jimmy Wales' speech, which focused on issues of Internet freedom and noted that of 234 governmental requests to remove content from Wikipedia, none were granted. Wales also gave away the bride at a wedding of two Israeli Wikipedians at the conference, Darya and Avner Kantor, whose love story was featured on the WMF blog earlier this year.
As Wikimania 2015 draws to a close, attention turns to the 2016 iteration of the conference, slated to be held in Esino Lario, Italy. Although there are serious questions as to whether infrastructure available in the small Lombardy town is conducive to a large conference such as Wikimania ( see previous Signpost coverage), at the site presentation in Mexico City, Iolanda Pensa ( Iopensa), the lead organizer for the conference, answered the question "Why Esino Lario?" simply by saying "Because we can."
Lightbreather Arbitration case
Even before it closed on July 17, the Arbitration case involving Lightbreather attracted widespread comment. Lightbreather herself posted a banner on her userpage on July 1 declaring "Retired due to sexual harassment", only returning two weeks later to make edits to the talk page of the proposed decision.
The language in one of the proposed principles attracted widespread comment. Regarding the inability of the community and the Committee to effectively address serious cases of harassment, the principle suggested that victims should consider "lowering their profile until the threat is past". This prompted objections on- and off-wiki. SlimVirgin wrote that the proposed decision supports the idea that "women who are being baited are expected to keep quiet or stop editing". A number of the Arbitrators agreed. One of them, Euryalus, wrote "I opposed the reference to people being advised to keep quiet and lower their profile of harassed, for precisely the reason you outline - it tells people to let the harassers win. What we should be telling people is to make a fuss about harassment through the right channels, and for those channels to work well enough that the harassment gets dealt with." The offending language was removed by Roger Davies on July 13 "in an endeavour to achieve consensus".
Despite this, the final decision, which included a site-ban for Lightbreather, was still controversial on-wiki and attracted comment offsite. Brianna Wu, a game developer who has been the victim of significant harassment herself, tweeted: "The whole case is shameful. She asked Wiki to take action against sexual harassers, they didn't. They ban her, no punishment for harassers." On User talk:Jimbo Wales, Robert McClenon placed the blame on the Wikimedia Foundation, not on the Arbitration Committee: "My opinion is that the WMF has not done enough. Off-wiki harassment of Wikipedia editors is an existential threat to the neutrality of Wikipedia...Off-wiki harassment is a threat both to the neutrality of Wikipedia and the editors of Wikipedia." CorporateM began an RFC asking whether or not Wikipedia should have "a sexual harassment policy or a part of the harassment policy focused on sexual harassment."
Coverage of the case itself will appear in next week's Arbitration Report.
Brief notes
- New user-groups: The Affiliations Committee announced the approval of this week's newest Wikimedia movement affiliates, the Wikimedians of Korea User Group, the Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group, the Iranian Wikimedians User Group, the WikiWomen's User Group, and the Wikimedia Community User Group Belarus. GP!
- Wikimedia Board names new chair and vice chair: Jan-Bart de Vreede announced that the Wikimedia Board of Trustees had elected Patricio Lorente chair and Alice Wiegand vice-chair. Lorente is presently the vice-chair of the Board, and will replace de Vreede. He was appointed by Wikimedia Argentina, and has been on the board since 2012. Wiegand is an appointed member of the Board who is currently a liaison to the Affiliations Committee. She also has been on the board since 2012. GP!
- Victory in Italy: The Wikimedia blog reported that an Italian court ruled in favor of the Wikimedia Foundation on a case pertaining to defamation. An excerpt from the court's opinion states, "[N]eutrality of the hosting provider does not disappear just because the [WMF], when informed of potentially illicit content of some of the material uploaded … may intervene to remove it." Geoff Brigham, WMF's chief legal counsel, views the case as a vindication of the Wikipedia model that allows for self-correction by its contributors, and called the ruling "a victory for all Wikipedians and for freedom of speech on the Internet." GP!
- Goan Konkani Wikipedia launched: The Goan Konkani Wikipedia has officially launched after nine years in incubation. The Konkani language has 7.4 million speakers and is the official language of Goa, a state in western India. Much of the work has been the result of a project in conjunction with Goa University. The Konkani Wikipedia currently has 372 articles and 344 active users. It is 258th out of 290 Wikipedias by size on the List of Wikipedias. See also the WMF blog post on the launch. G
- Wikimedia DC announces book grant program: Wikimedia DC announced a new book grant program, offering grants of up to $500 to Wikimedians in the United States to purchase books to be used for creating and improving Wikipedia articles. This is similar to a 2014 book grant program that The Wikipedia Library created for editors on the Arabic Wikipedia. G
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Wikimanía 2015 report, part 1, the plenaries
The conference venue
The main conference of Wikimanía 2015 occurred from Friday through Sunday, the 17 to 19 July, at the Hotel Hilton Mexico City Reforma, across from the Alameda Central in the historic center of Mexico City. The education pre-conference and hackathon took place the two days before the main conference.
The plenary talks
Lila Tretikov
Iván Martínez, the Wikimanía 2015 coordinator, welcomed the attendees on Friday, then introduced WMF's executive director, Lila Tretikov, who gave the opening plenary address. First, she briefly listed her diverse meetings with WikiArabia, Wikimedia Israel, the Wikimedia Conference 2015, the Wikimedians of the Levant, and Wikimedia Polska, and teleconferencing with the Museo Soumaya editathon. Tretikov compared the growth of Wikimedia to that of cultivating grapes, evolving from seedlings to a cohesive and productive vineyard, in which “together, we are more than the sum of us”. She noted our current challenges: five billion people newly online in this next decade, fast-moving and technology-savvy users, the expanding role of artificial intelligence in knowledge creation, changing knowledge formats, and the opportunities presented by institutions eager to share their knowledge. Tretikov then outlined the strategy consultation that the WMF undertakes with editors across many countries, Wikimedia projects, and languages, and the WMF's desire to partner technology and our communities for innovation. She cited new tools such as editing and adding citations in Visual Editor, Revscore, content translation (including a recommendation algorithm to match translators with missing articles), and new mobile tools (e.g., collections). She noted that the 2015 election of three WMF board members was a team effort in process improvement and editor/voter outreach. Tretikov closed by recommending that we be bold, return to openness and collaboration, focus on what we love and let go of the rest, unite and integrate our work, and embrace diversity.
A pdf from Tretikov 's presentation is here.
Luis von Ahn
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Luis von Ahn, co-founder of ReCAPTCHA and duoLingo, spoke on Saturday. He explained that after initially developing this widely used version of the captcha, he grew to feel guilty about occupying users' time solely to distinguish between humans and bots, and that as a result of this ambivalence he had developed a means of presenting a second word in the captcha to aid in translating textual images from scanned books that are unreadable by computers. By pairing an unknown word image with a known one, the captcha server program would use the known word in the image pair to verify the user as human, and would record the response for the unknown word in the image pair until enough human responses were obtained to reliably identify its meaning.
After selling ReCAPTCHA to Google in 2009, he turned his attention to the educational needs of the underprivileged in countries like his birth place of Guatemala, where there is a great need for an inexpensive means to learn English for economic advancement. Thus, duoLingo was born, a free app and web application that required only a smart phone or a computer to use. Honed by applying lessons learned from usability statistics obtained by automated feedback, duoLingo has more than 100 million registered users, and has been extended to a dozen language pairs, although it is largely limited to those of Roman script.
Jimmy Wales
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Jimmy Wales delivered the closing remarks. He concentrated on the freedom-of-expression issues that some Wikipedia users and editors are experiencing. He listed two examples and a related philosophical conundrum:
- The initial total blocking of Wikipedia by the Chinese government, followed by a period of filtered blocking of individual pages, then back to a total ban when WMF instituted HTTPS as the web protocol for accessing Wikipedia. He stressed that one of the arguments he would use in his discussion with the Chinese government on the WMF's behalf was that because of the government's blocking actions, the perspective of China within Wikipedia would be represented only by editors outside mainland China
- There are editors who are intimidated and threatened due to their work. In particular, Wales recounted the story of an editor who simply had recorded the results of anti-government protests in Venezuela, including it in articles and uploading photographs to Commons. This editor received death threats and fled the country as result. Venezuela then revoked his passport, leaving him in a legal limbo in which he cannot return to his country or travel elsewhere, and is uncertain of his refugee status where he is.
- The philosophical conundrum that Wales presented was the problem of reliably citing articles about topics that are within countries in which the mass media is controlled by the government. In these cases, the only available references may be those that the government permits.
Wales' announcement of Wikipedian of the year was made in pectore, meaning that he did not reveal the name at this time because doing so has the potential to bring reprisal or harm to the recipient. He also named two honorable mentions, Susanna Mkrtchyan, president of Wikimedia Armenia who has recently been instrumental in promoting the Western Armenian Wikipedia (see also the Signpost coverage), and Satdeep Gill for his contributions and promotion of the Punjabi Wikipedia.
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Novelists annotate Wikipedia; Wales promotes TPO; Working for free
Three novelists annotate their Wikipedia articles
The magazine New York reports that three novelists "have found a way to control the Wikipedia narrative" by using the annotation website Genius to annotate their own Wikipedia articles. They have supplied numerous thoughtful and introspective comments about their work, friends, and collaborators, which are sure to be mined for future Wikipedia edits. They have also made substantial comments about the effect their Wikipedia articles have had on them, an in-depth reflection that is rarely seen from the subject of an article—more common are angry complaints or passing comments in an interview. New York writes that these authors have used Genius "mostly as a way to play with the form but also as a way to correct, explain, and rewrite a story that someone else has written about them." (July 16)
Emily Gould
Emily Gould (Friendship) wrote about her article:
| “ | I’ve always really hated my Wikipedia page—it’s so far away from how I think of myself and my career. It’s made me think of Wikipedia differently as a research tool—I take it with a massive, whopping, deer-lick-sized grain of salt. A lot of my page isn’t exactly inaccurate, it’s just from a bizarre standpoint. This is never what a human would sit down and write—even a human who really hated me. Who is Emily Gould, what does she do? What is an Emily Gould? This is like the accrual of all of the moments when the internet has been paying attention to me minus the ones that actually mattered. | ” |
One of those moments is the subject of the greater part of the text in her Wikipedia article, a "Criticism" section devoted to a 2007 panel discussion on the CNN show Larry King Live, where Gould, who was co-editor of Gawker at the time, was confronted about a Gawker feature by Jimmy Kimmel. She wrote:
| “ | This section feels disproportionate to the rest of my page. I get four sentences for “Career” and then “Criticism” is two paragraphs that end with a sad note about how I had to get therapy? That isn’t cool ... I’ve never looked at Jimmy Kimmel’s Wikipedia page but I’m sure it has a better “Criticism” to “Career” ratio. | ” |
Gould reflected on the classification of her occupation as "writer, editor, blogger":
| “ | I guess I’ve got to cut Wikipedia some slack because what do I do really? What would I call that? I would like to be known as an author—that seems like a thing that I am. I wrote some books. Author means “wrote books.” | ” |
Gould also noted that her birth year (cited to a 2014 print publication) was incorrect and wrote of her dislike of her infobox photo, taken by a Wikimedian in 2009:
| “ | This photo is so bad. I know Wikipedia basically has to use some stock photo that some random person took of you because they can’t use anything that anyone wants to claim the rights to. They can’t use for example my author photo or any photo of me that has ever been in a magazine or a newspaper. They can’t use a photo that was taken by a photographer. That’s why everyone’s Wikipedia photo is so terrible.
I can’t remember exactly what I was doing in the photo—I think I was moderating some panel. 2009 was the year I took yoga teacher training and I was the chubbiest I have ever been in my life. It’s also a bad angle and I’m also wearing this weird leather vest that’s kind of popping at the seams. It’s just the worst photo and I hate it so much. |
” |
Sheila Heti
The article for Sheila Heti (How Should a Person Be?) describes her as "a Canadian writer and editor". Heti wrote, "I don’t feel particularly connected to Canadian literature" and "I don’t know why it says, 'and editor' at the top. I always find that kind of weird." Of her inclusion in the category Category:Canadian women novelists, Heti concurred with Amanda Filipacchi's prominent criticism of Wikipedia's gender categories (see previous Signpost coverage) and wrote, "I think it would be better not to have this category at all." She was, however, pleased with her inclusion in Category:Living people, quipping "This is the best category to be in."
Like Gould, Heti objected to her infobox photo, which was also taken by a Wikimedian, this one in 2013. Unlike Gould, Heti removed it "because it was the worst photo that had ever been taken of me. It was a camera photo from a bad angle, blurry, and I felt I looked disgusting. I considered replacing it but I felt too cautious and left it blank."
Heti reflected on Wikipedia's ability to magnify and propagate minor comments and incidents. Included in her article is a comment from a 2007 interview in which she said, "Increasingly I'm less interested in writing about fictional people." Heti wrote:
| “ | I don’t know who put that in there. For a while, every person who interviewed me referenced it. It’s such a tell: you instantly know that someone has done basically no research and has only read your Wikipedia page. It’s been practically ten years since I said this—interests change. It’s funny how one thing you say can become so big when one person thinks to put it on your Wikipedia page. People think it’s more important than everything else because it’s on Wikipedia. | ” |
Chris Kraus
Chris Kraus ( I Love Dick) discussed the creation of her article in August 2006:
| “ | This was originally put up by my friend Ariana Reines. There was a time when everyone was getting Wiki pages, which I guess was around the time of Ariana’s The Cow—that’s the way we’re dating it—which was 2006. Suddenly you had to have a Wikipedia page—it was the go-to thing. So everybody had to have one and that’s why I asked Ariana to do it, as part of a trade. She did me a favor, and I did her a favor. What did I do in exchange? I really don’t remember. Maybe I blurbed her book? But that seems like a lot to ask in exchange for writing a whole wiki page! I hope I did more than that. | ” |
Her current opinion of the article, however, is negative:
| “ | I’ve never read my Wikipedia page. It’s horrible, too embarrassing. My understanding is that anybody can go in and change it at any point. I looked at it once and it was just so awry and inaccurate. I realized there was no point fixing it or paying attention to it because it was out of my control, so I wasn’t going to think about it. | ” |
Wales promotes The People's Operator US launch
The People's Operator is a UK-based mobile virtual network operator and social networking service which allows its customers to direct 10% of what they spend to charities of their choice. TPO is coming to the United States, and TPO chairman Jimmy Wales is the public face of their rollout. Wales told Vanity Fair that he saw parallels between his work for TPO and Wikipedia: "I’ve discovered in my work that if you can give people the tools they're looking for, that allow them to accomplish the goals that they have for themselves, they can do amazing things. Here, if you want to raise money for your local hospital, we can give you the tools to do that." In a wide-ranging interview with HuffPost Live, Wales touched on a number of topics besides TPO. (July 21)
When asked about the Sunshine Sachs controversy (see previous Signpost coverage), Wales encouraged PR companies to be "transparent" and said of undisclosed paid editing:
| “ | I think it's a really bad idea for them to do this, because they get caught and it embarrasses their clients. There's better ways to deal with Wikipedia. You know, we're very open, people can email us and say 'we've got this correction, we've got this information' and sometimes unethical PR people—and there are lots and lots of ethical PR people—but the unethical ones think 'I'll just make up a fake ID and pretend to be someone' and so one and it embarrasses their client and so on. It's like, you could have just sent us an email, you could have just gone to the talk page and said 'hey, there's a problem here, here's some sources', you know. The community is very passionate about getting it right. | ” |
Wales spoke about Wikipedia's involvement in the NSA lawsuit (see previous Signpost coverage) and his reaction to British Prime Minister David Cameron's call to ban encryption:
| “ | I think it's just technological incompetence. One of the most important things we can do is improve the security of the internet. ... and that means end-to-end encryption everywhere. That's what he should be campaigning for. And just the idea that you can ban encryption, or ban end-to-end encryption, is just nonsense. It's impossible, it's math. You can't ban math. | ” |
Wales reflected on changing perceptions of the quality of Wikipedia over the years:
| “ | The community's always been passionate about quality. But of course, when you first start writing, and when you've first got a small group of people ... it's going to be incomplete, it's going to be weak in various ways, but because we've maintained a passion for doing something amazing for the world, for really getting it right, then over the years it just continues to improve. So we've earned a little bit of respect, but we've still got a long way to go. | ” |
One of those ways is the gender gap:
| “ | The gender balance in the community is not good, and this leads to certain kinds of biases in the content. When your typical Wikipedian is a technical person, tech geek, 26 year old male, no kids, there's a certain profile of a typical Wikipedia user, which means they're very, very interested in some topics and they know very little and not very interested in some topics. So we want to have people from very diverse backgrounds who'll have an interest in all kinds of different subjects, because then they can build quality work in the areas that we're currently neglecting. | ” |
Working for free
In the wake of the volunteer moderator uprising on the social media website Reddit, Caitlin Dewey of the Washington Post examines how and why people work for free on websites on the social web. As she bluntly puts it "A century ago, you might’ve dubbed it robber-barony or sharecropping — if not, you know, outright slavery. In 2015, though, we call it the social Web: a glorious dystopia where everybody works for likes — as in, “for free” — while a handful of tech tycoons profit." Dewey notes that the free labor of Wikipedia's volunteers "plays a large role in the $51 million in donations that Wikipedia scored last year — and also in the staggering $16.5 billion in revenue that Google reported in 2014", especially due to the inclusion of Wikipedia data in Google's Knowledge Graph.
Dewey spoke with Justin Knapp ( Koavf), the most prolific of those volunteers who is at the top of the List of Wikipedians by number of edits. Dewey writes "With nearly 1.5 million contributions, the 33-year-old Wikipedian is more active on the site than literally anyone else — including members of the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation’s paid staff." Dewey contrasts the billions taken in by tech companies with Knapp's life in Indianapolis, where he works three jobs and drives a fifteen-year-old car. She identifies Knapp's motivation with the sociological term "affective currency", which describes intangible motivations and benefits that such people get out of their work. Knapp says "I understand that some people want to be paid to do what they love. But when you put a number on the thing you love, it can't be priceless. If you don't put a number on it, you assign the value and the meaning to it, yourself — you don't negotiate that with the market."
Efforts to compensate such volunteer labor are still in their infancy. One idea mentioned by Dewey was offered by Wikipedian Dorothy Howard ( Vaughn88) last year in an essay where she raised "the question of compensating certain classes of 'super-editors' for major contributions." She suggested following the model of YouTube's Partner Program by compensating those editors through donations to Wikipedia. She wrote "This type of project would allow for more fair digital labor practices and would compensate viewers for their major contributions to the site's legitimacy as a reliable source." (July 22)
Congressman's bizarre tweet prompts Wikipedia vandalism
On July 17, a pro- immigration reform Twitter account posted a picture of Julian Castro, the Democratic Party United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, along with a statement he made on MSNBC regarding the possibility of Latino voters favoring the Republican Party: "The GOP can kiss the Latino vote goodbye." Republican Congressman Steve King of Iowa, tweeted in response "What does Julian Castro know? Does he know that I'm as Hispanic and Latino as he?"
The meaning of King's tweet is unclear. King, who is of Irish, Welsh, and German ancestry, is not Latino, as many critics on Twitter immediately pointed out. NBC News notes that "King is not listed among Hispanic members of the House in a list kept by the House Press Gallery." However, Castro was born in San Antonio, Texas and is of Mexican descent. NBC News and Politico speculated that the tweet was in reference to reports that Castro is not fluent in Spanish. (Many Americans of Latino descent do not speak Spanish.) Both news outlets reported that King's office did not respond to their requests for clarification.
A number of political news outlets and blogs, including Mediaite, Salon, and Raw Story, noted that King's Wikipedia article was quickly updated to reflect King's declaration. "Hispanic" was added to his Irish, Welsh, and German ancestry, cited to the tweet. His name was translated into Spanish from "Steven Arnold 'Steve' King" to "Esteban Arnoldo 'Steba' Rey". A comment was added claiming King admitted to being "the child or grandchild of illegal immigrants." All of these changes were quickly reverted. Unlike most cases of vandalism driven by off-site events, the vandalism quickly subsided and article protection was not required. Two days later, however, King's infobox picture was replaced with that of professional wrestler Rey Mysterio.
King has a history of offensive and racially-charged remarks about Latinos and immigrants. Most notoriously, in 2013 he said of the children of illegal immigrants: "For every one who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert."
In brief
- Bollywood flops: The International Business Times notes the appearance of some Bollywood films, including Aag, Machhli Jal Ki Rani Hai, and Humshakals, in the article List of films considered the worst. (July 23)
- In other political vandalism: The Washington Post reported that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's Wikipedia article was "essentially deleted" twice, the second time being replaced with the statement ""Lets [ sic] be fair, nobody cares about him." The article had been semi-protected since July 10, but the vandalism was performed by autoconfirmed accounts. The editors were warned and the vandalism was quickly reverted. (July 22)
- Konkani Wikipedia launched: The Times of India reports on the launch of the Konkani Wikipedia, nine years in the making. See this week's News and Notes for more details. (July 19)
- India makes the Top 25: The Times of India reports on the presence of the articles Vyapam scam and Baahubali on the Top 25 Report of most viewed Wikipedia articles. (July 19)
- Wikipedians in Residence: Inside Higher Ed and Times Higher Education both discuss the new Wikipedian in Residence at the West Virginia University and the WiR program in general. (July 17, 20)
- Offline reading: Gizmodo explains how to save Wikipedia articles for offline access using the official apps for Android and iOS. (July 17)
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The Nerds, They Are A-Changin'
Summary: When I was a kid, being a nerd meant wanting to go to Pluto. Well now we have gone to Pluto and all my fellow nerds want to talk about is Comic Con and the latest Marvel movie. It seems seeing a trailer for a movie they're all going to see anyway is more important than viewing landscapes as yet unseen by human eyes and unlikely to be seen again. And no, my peevishness has nothing to do with my being the chief editor of the Pluto article. Well, maybe a bit.
For the full top-25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions. For a list of the most edited articles of the week, see here.
As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of July 12 to 18, 2015, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:
Rank Article Class Views Image Notes 1 Suicide Squad 
1,817,973 
DC Comics' ramshackle crew of pressganged supervillains, forced to do the will of a shadowy organization or let their heads explode, are the stars of one of the most anticipated films in the upcoming DC Cinematic Universe. This week, at San Diego Comic Con, Warner Bros released the film's first trailer, which, from the Wikipedia views, seems to have gotten the fans more excited than the upcoming Batman vs. Superman movie. 2 Joaquín Guzmán Loera 
1,671,857 This ruthless narco-trafficker, boss of the Sinaloa cartel and reportedly the world's 14th richest man, became an enduring folk hero and the subject of a hundred " narcocorridos" (folk songs glorying the deeds of the great drug lords) after he escaped from a top-security prison in 2001. He was on the lam for 13 years before his recapture in 2014. And now, get ready to tune up your guitars mariachis, because he just did it again. On 11 July, he escaped his prison cell through a tunnel under the shower; by sheer coincidence the only blind spot for the surveillance cameras. If, at this point, you're having flashbacks to The Shawshank Redemption, ditch them: the tunnel was professionally constructed, contained electric lighting, was 1.7 metres tall and 1.5 km long, and included a motorcycle. And no one noticed it being built. Apparently. Oh, and despite being the world's most wanted fugitive, he apparently has an active Twitter account with half a million followers. Frustratingly (but appropriately) the views for this article are a bit dodgy, since they all appear to be for his longer name, which is a redirect. Still, the mobile count is good and the topic is valid, so I can't really argue. 3 Suicide Squad (film) 
1,608,426 See #1. 4 Pluto 
1,491,263 
Does it ever astonish you how often things work? We had one, just one, chance to get this right, and after 11 years in political limbo, three years in development, and nine years in space, everything hinged on a series of pre-programmed actions performed over the course of just 22 hours by a computer 4.7 billion miles away. During that time, the probe was radio silent; we had no idea if it had survived or not. If we hadn't received its bleep of hello then the entire mission would have been for nothing, and it is doubtful I or any of you would have seen the results in our lifetime. Think on that. And then remember that this event was out-viewed by an escaped drug lord and the trailer for a comic book movie. 5 Satoru Iwata
1,253,657 
The famously ebullient CEO of Nintendo, who often incorporated bananas and caricature puppets into his presentations, winning him the admiration of gamers, died suddenly of cancer this week at the age of just 55. The first CEO of the company not related to the founding Yamauchi family in its 128-year history, he nonetheless strictly maintained its ethos that Nintendo products were for everyone, not just children or adults. In a moment that could have come from one of their games, a rainbow appeared over Nintendo's Kyoto HQ on the day his death was announced. 6 Novak Djokovic
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The Wimbledon Men's (sorry, Gentlemen's) singles final wasn't held until the 12th, which meant that Best Tennis Player of All TimeTM Roger Federer got all the attention last week, before his final defeat at the hands of this Serbian wunderkind, who appropriately now gets his due. And he should; he won last year too. 7 Baahubali (film)
853,839 
At $41 million, this sprawling, two-part historical epic is the most expensive film in Indian history (no, it isn't actually Bollywood, since it was made in South India, much to Bollywood's chagrin). Starring the Telugu actor Prabhas (pictured), the first part, subtitled "The Beginning", broke box office records upon its release on July 10, earning Rs 2.15 billion ($34 million) worldwide in just 5 days. 8 Ant-Man (film)
846,555 Personal editorial alert: As an avid fan of Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, and Hot Fuzz (I said I was a nerd), I was wary when writer/director Edgar Wright unceremoniously dumped the highest-profile project of his career because Marvel Studios refused to give him full creative control, particularly since Marvel kept this project alive for a decade mainly because he was interested in it. Afraid the damage caused by his departure would be irreparable, I began to speculate if there was a "Number 12 curse"; that no studio, no matter how beloved or respected, can go 12 movies without a critical bomb. Pixar's 12th was Cars 2; this was Marvel's. Well, they managed to avoid the critical mauling (the film's RT score is a decent 79%, though critics in my UK home have been crueller- no doubt in solidarity with Edgar), but the box office is somewhat iffy; while it opened at #1 (like every other Marvel Studios film to date), it had the lowest per-screen average of any film in the franchise. The film could still be buoyed by good word of mouth however. 9 New Horizons
839,290 
The fastest spacecraft ever launched finally reached its destination after 9 years of traversing the interplanetary void. It may not be as cute as Sojourner but it is a stalwart little thing which, as several memes pointed out this week, cost less taxpayer money than several refurbished stadiums. And its mission isn't even over yet; the team hopes to redirect it to another Kuiper belt object before it leaves the Solar System's charted regions. 10 Roger Federer 
791,565 
The man widely regarded as the best tennis player of all time lost the Wimbledon title to Novak Djokovic in a titanic 7-6, 6-7, 6-4, 6-3 showdown.
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Some more politics
- 2ReinreB2 is attempting to revive the Percy Jackson Task-force (located here) and has also suggested that this project's scope be expanded, maybe even to the point of renaming the project. The proposal in brief. Would appreciate the help of any interested users.
- If you would like your WikiProject featured in the report, please submit a request at the WikiProject Desk
Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.
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An active project which we haven't for some reason interviewed here before: WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom. Taking us through the polling booth and beyond are JRPG, This is Paul, and Cloptonson.
What motivated you to join WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom? Are you active on the political scene, even held office, or just interested?
- JRPG: I'm a member of a political party with a place on the executive committee of my local constituency. I studied 'British Constitution' at school which started a lifelong interest. I led a local political campaign about lost pensions under Ros Altmann's leadership and appeared numerous times on TV including The Politics Show. I met about 20 MPs and several ministers over a period of 5 years and also worked as a volunteer in an MP's office. There I learnt how to avoid letters being intercepted by parliamentary assistants & hence ensure the MP sees my letter. I also learnt of the persuasive power of a local newspaper relative to the whips.
- This is Paul: I've always been interested in politics, largely I think because I was growing up during a decade when the country was undergoing some dramatic changes, and I realised the decisions our politicians were making affected so many aspects of our day-to-day lives. I haven't personally been politically active though. At university I took a degree in business studies, although the course encompassed some aspects of politics as well, and was a student in the years preceding the 1997 general election. I remember it as an interesting time to be at university. I suppose I saw joining the project as a way of improving our coverage of the topic, and hope I've made a small contribution to that end, as well as expanding my own political knowledge.
- Cloptonson: English law was my best O-level subject and political history was my major topic of interest when studying at A-level (though I got poor exam results for health reasons) and I grew up in a politically aware paternal family with a propensity to support Labour. None of them achieved political office (my father – born under Ramsay Macdonald and died under Tony Blair) and a paternal great uncle were respectively unsuccessful local council Labour and Liberal candidates). To the best of my knowledge, I am unrelated to any past or present MPs, which gives me a freedom from vested interests when working on biographies. I was working on Wikipedia's biographical and constituency articles before I joined the project. What did get me to join was to advertise my interest in biographical facts about MPs and encourage help about potential records. I have flagged up contenders for shortest lived MPs, first Christian Scientist and first Spiritualist Church MPs, youngest woman MP to die in office, heaviest Prime Minister, to mention a few.
Have you contributed to any of the project's 46 featured articles, 6 featured lists, and 89 good articles? Are you currently working on promoting an article to FA or GA status?
- JRPG: Yes, I read BBC, Guardian, Telegraph, Times & Independent and contribute news items on an ad-hoc basis from those.
- This is Paul: I've taken several articles through the GA process ( 2010 United Kingdom government formation and Johann Lamont being two), but only have one UK politics featured article at present ( A Journey). Shortly I plan to take Scottish Labour Party leadership election, 2014 through FAC and hope to see that promoted later in the year. On a wider note, with Scotland taking an increased responsibility for deciding its own affairs I'd like to improve other Scottish politics related stuff.
- Cloptonson: I have opportunely contributed information on events and firsts/lasts/onlys to the List of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom and biographical details (not all on political activity) to articles on Benjamin Disraeli, Horatio Bottomley, Neville Chamberlain, Ellen Wilkinson, George Lansbury, and Sir Isaac Newton (the scientist few people may know was twice an MP). I leave it to others to decide if my contribution to a not-yet FA or GA article leads to it being voted as such. (If any contribution of mine does have a factor, please let me know!)
How did the project manage when dealing with the recent general election in the UK? Was there any co-ordination in updating unfolding results and coverage?
- JRPG: Unfortunately there was a major problem with WP:SPAs from UKIP unaware of the rules and writing their own usually uncited opinion of candidates. Also some candidates using what looked like PR men to write their article. In some cases I think I could even recognise the style. The Telegraph and Guardian both published instances of where favourable edits came from within Parliament and I was one of the editors who updated the pages to show this poor behaviour. IPs, however, did help to get the result out.
- This is Paul: A large event such as a general election always presents a challenge, but I think we were successful in staying up to speed with it. My own contribution was a couple of biographies about newly-elected MPs, which I'm now working to expand.
- Cloptonson: I agree with This is Paul. I contributed minimally, with adding voting figures for that general election in some of the constituencies in my home county, Shropshire, the day after polling, and minor biographical details for one (subsequently unsuccessful) candidate incumbent MP and a former MP who declared support for a party other than one he sat for.
Does WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom collaborate with any other WikiProjects, such as WP Law or the politics of another country? Has the project taken advantage of Wikipedia's sister projects, like Wikisource or the Commons?
- JRPG: I'm not aware of any collaboration. I have a strong interest in Law and believe that lawyers on both sides in the Commons make a disproportionate contribution, particularly on select committees. They are also in contact with ordinary people.
- This is Paul: There are a few country-specific politics projects, like the one for Australia, but I'm also not aware of any collaboration between them. I'm sure there's scope for it to happen though. Sadly the parent Politics project seems to be largely inactive at present.
Is it difficult to find images to illustrate political articles? What topics are most in need of diagrams and photography?
- JRPG: That's made me think! My father was a professional photographer and I always regarded his caption as crucial. A captioned photograph showing inner city deprivation might win a newspaper award but it could be both intrusive and potentially wp:npov. Showing floods, a posh new bridge or hospital facilities etc. would be less so as those are of community importance. I often ring constituency offices to ask for MP photographs but have had a lot of problems getting them to understand the real need to return the email necessary to renounce copyright. Maddening! Irrespective of our opinion of an MPs views, we should provide the best photographs available and that means ones that they're happy with.
- Cloptonson: An authentic portrait or picture of a sculpture is always welcome. Via talk pages and unbiased by political sympathy I have flagged up a few pictures that I had reason to doubt were of the subject of the article, and urge someone to find a replacement for the cycle-helmeted pic chosen for Sir Peter Bottomley's article to do his features better justice!
Which political party do you vote for, and why? Does that party usually win in your home constituency?
- JRPG: I make a point of NOT stating my political party -and have been accused of bias by both main parties when reducing wp:undue expense-related verbiage. Despite being a wp:rs the Telegraph got completely carried away in a number of cases during the United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal. I have never lived in a constituency where the candidate has won and even when I moved to a marginal, the boundary commission went and scuppered my plans. However I don't hesitate to write to my MP or visit him if I feel I have a contribution to make. I always assume he will work with me to help his constituents regardless of political differences. Usually if you make that clear they will help.
- This is Paul: I support the Labour Party, but a Labour candidate hasn't been elected in my constituency for some years. Sadly though declaring my political allegiance has led to accusations of bias, particularly from the occasional " cybernat" while editing articles about Scottish politics, but I endeavour to be neutral in my contributions to Wikipedia.
- Cloptonson: I have voted mainly for Labour candidates but I do not let my personal sympathies get in the way of helping to build a good biography of a politician from another party. My home constituency in England is predominately Conservative voting and since 1923 only had a non-Conservative MP in 1997–2005. I have also worked on job creation stints for local government and since 1987 have been continually employed in a central government department (where my Wikipedian activity is known among my colleagues), which gives me an added insight into our political system but I do not misuse Wikipedia to leak restricted information or to feed comments on contentious current issues – nor do I access Wikipedia during my working hours, unlike the Liverpool civil servant who got sacked having made comments on the Hillsborough football ground tragedy.
What are WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom's most urgent needs? How can a new member help today?
- JRPG: A new member familiar with WP:Suggested sources, wp:Editorial wp:NPOV, WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV and WP:UNDUE could reads and improve many political articles. I am saddened at the number of new IPs who are clearly interested in politics but who vandalise articles with uncited opinion. I'm now trying to be friendly, asking if they can contribute using a suitable source and offering to help.
- This is Paul: We have a lot of short articles that need expanding, particularly those about members of the UK's various legislative bodies. A good starting point might be to find a subject that interests you then work on improving it. The use of quality sources such as the BBC, The Guardian, The Independent and The Telegraph to support new material is of paramount importance though. Adopting the article about your local MP, MSP, AM, etc, might also be a good way to get started.
- Cloptonson: I agree with This is Paul's suggestion about adopting a local legislator, this would spread the burden. I am particularly watchful of articles on Shropshire politicians.
Anything else you'd like to add?
- JRPG: In politics it's important to avoid wp:editorialising and properly quantify achievements. The main parties assess a candidate by comparing his achievement with that of his party as a whole, e.g. how the swing in his constituency compares with the national average. We need to make sure people know how to do this. Also to define what is notable -every MP has campaigned to save their local hospital.
- This is Paul: I think the important thing to remember with a topic like politics is that it's essential to approach it from a neutral point of view. Often you may find yourself working on articles about people whose opinions you do not share and subjects with which you profoundly disagree, so you need to have a balanced perspective.
- Cloptonson: I too avoid editorialising and partisan bias.
Reader comments
The sleep of reason produces monsters
- 73rd Academy Awards
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Featured articles
Three Featured articles were promoted this week.
- Capon Chapel ( nominated by West Virginian) Capon Chapel is situated two miles south of Capon Bridge, West Virginia, USA. It's a small church, built from logs in the 1850s. The area was a stronghold of the Baptists in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and there was probably a Baptist church on the site. The first burial in the cemetery occurred in 1816, but the first certain mention of a church was in a land grant of 1852, referring to a house of worship "for the use of all orthodox Christians". Primarily used by the Baptists until the early part of last century, it became a stop on the local Methodist preachers' circuit, and as Baptist use declined, the Methodists became the chapel's users and carers. Today it is part of the United Methodist Church.
- Tom Simpson ( nominated by BaldBoris) One of Britain's most successful racing cyclists, Tom Simpson competed victoriously in several professional cycle races, including the Tour de France, the Tour of Flanders, the Bordeaux–Paris race, the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games, and the 1956 Summer Olympics. Simpson learned to ride the bicycle at the age of twelve and a year later he joined a cycling club where he participated in his first road race. Simpson collapsed and died at the age of 29 in the thirteenth stage of the 1967 Tour de France, during the ascent of Mont Ventoux. His collapse was caused by high daytime temperatures (reaching up to 53° C) combined with his having mixed amphetamines and alcohol.
- Witches' Sabbath (The Great He-Goat) ( nominated by Ceoil) An excellent art article from our art expert Ceoil and company. Francisco Goya painted Witches' Sabbath in the early 1820s, in oils on the plaster wall of his home near Madrid. It's one of a set of fourteen murals that Goya left to his grandson, along with the house, when the artist left for exile. Goya gave neither title nor explanation for any of them. The Sabbath has been interpreted as Satan in the form of a goat, dominating a group of fearful witches. To the right sits an enigmatic young girl. Goya was an artist of peculiar imagination, who in his so-called Black Paintings mocked clerical institutions and ridiculed the stereotypes of witches and the grotesque side of their festivities and ceremonies. He portrayed ugly and malformed figures whose hideousness he accentuated with the use of loose brushwork. The grotesque faces provide a scary, frenzied atmosphere to his pictures. They have been seen as his artistic response to a "first-hand and acute awareness of panic, terror, fear and hysteria." Or something like that....
Featured lists
Two Featured lists were promoted this week.
- 73rd Academy Awards ( nominated by Birdienest81) Honoring films from the year 2000, the Best Picture Oscar went to Gladiator, Ridley Scott's Roman fighting epic which was probably the worst of the five nominees from that year. It took home five wins, including Best Actor for Russell Crowe, but notably no wins for its director or screenwriters, a first for a Best Picture since 1949. Best Director went to Steven Soderbergh; his films Traffic and Erin Brockovich both received nominations for Best Picture and Best Director, the latter nomination making him the third person to ever get double nominations for directing. Playing the title role in the David and Goliath story Erin Brockovich won Julia Roberts Best Actress. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon didn't win any of the major awards it was nominated for, but picked up four Oscars, including one for its stunning score by Tan Dun. Two of the best films of 2000, O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Almost Famous, were snubbed, receiving only nominations for minor categories, and no wins.
- List of works by Dorothy L. Sayers ( nominated by SchroCat) Dorothy Leigh Sayers was a prolific English intellectual writer, essayist, poet, playwright and Christian humanist. She is best known nowadays for her "whodunits" featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, the gentleman detective, who has as his special hobby solving mysteries. He is a funny and sophisticated character – not the hardboiled trenchcoat-wearing detective, but the well educated and cerebral gentleman, with exquisite taste in wine, cars, clothing and books. Her first detective novel, Whose Body?, from 1923, features the naked body of a man wearing pince-nez, left in someone's bathtub as a joke. In the 1930s Sayers ceased writing crime stories and turned instead to religious plays and essays, and to translating literary works, from medieval French and Italian into English. These included Tristan by Thomas of Britain, and Dante's Divine Comedy. The latter is considered one of the greatest works of world literature; her translation of the Divine Comedy is Sayers's magnum opus.
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Alexis I of Russia had problems with the Salt Riot and the Copper Riot but, unlike Putin, no problem at all with Pussy Riot
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Featured pictures
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Twenty-nine
Featured pictures were promoted this week.
- Alexis of Russia (created by Unknown; nominated by Crisco 1492) Aleksej Michajlovitj Romanov became Tsar Alexis I of Russia at the age of sixteen in 1645. His reign was marked by several revolts, starting with the Salt Riot in 1648, followed by the Copper Riot, and a Cossack revolt in the south, and by wars with Poland and Sweden. The schism of the Russian Orthodox church started during his reign; church authorities demanded that worshipers make the sign of the cross using three fingers instead of two. The Old Believers, insisting on using two fingers, broke away from the church. The state considered Old Believers dangerous- some were arrested and even executed. The tsar's "crowning merit" was apparently in discovering great men and employing them, such as Fyodor Rtishchev, a publicity-shy educationalist and founder of charities. Rtishchev became a target for assassins after meddling with the church's liturgy- maybe he thought they should use one finger instead of two or three. Tsar Alexis' last years were peaceful. He had two wives and sixteen children, of whom three became tsars.
- Funeral proceedings of Alfonso XII of Spain (created by Mr. Campuzano (illustration), Auguste Tilly (engraving); nominated by Adam Cuerden) Alfonso XII died aged 27 from dysentery in 1885. He became king of Spain in 1870, when his mother Queen Isabella II abdicated. They were in Paris at the time, living in exile after a revolution by the army. Alfonso returned to Spain in 1875, propelled there by a group of politicians and army officers who believed that a Bourbon restoration was the way forward out of the wars and unrest that were plaguing the country.
- Twenty-franc Napoleon and Fourty-franc Napoleon (created by the Paris Mint; nominated by Godot13) The Napoléon is a gold coin, minted during the reign of French emperor Napoléon Bonaparte between 1803 and 1815. The nomination shows the 20 and 40 franc coins. Minted in 90% gold, the coins became a widely accepted form of currency for international trade for many years after Napoléon's removal. An issue minted in London in 1815 to pay British troops stationed in northern France caused friction with the newly-restored Bourbon administration- the French regarded them as counterfeits even though they'd been approved by the emigré government previously.
- Vocal score cover of L'éclair (created by Paul Gavarni, restored and nominated by Adam Cuerden) L'éclair by the French Jewish composer Fromental Halévy is a comic opera in three acts. It was published in 1835, and utilises a small company of two tenors and two sopranos in a story of blind love- one of the men has been struck by lightning and is temporarily sightless.
- Vocal score cover of Rigoletto (created by Roberto Focosi, restored and nominated by Adam Cuerden) Rigoletto is an opera by Giuseppe Verdi, telling the tragic story of the hunch-backed court jester Rigoletto, and Rigoletto's beautiful daughter Gilda. The Duke in the history is a bit of a playboy, he seduced a courtier's daughter with Rigoletto's encouragement, who curses them. The curse placed on the Duke and Rigoletto hits Gilda instead, who falls in love with the Duke and later sacrifices her life to save the Duke from the assassins hired by Rigoletto, her father. Rigoletto is mad with sorrow when he realizes that it was Gilda, his beloved daughter that got murdered instead of the Duke. The Duke is the character who is singing the famous " La donna è mobile" aria, loved by the gondoliers in Venice. Roberto Focosi's fine illustration was restored by Adam Cuerden.
- Crew of an M-24 Chaffee Tank in Korea (created by Sgt. Riley (U.S. Army); nominated by TomStar81) The M24 was a light tank, developed during the Second World War by the United States. This photograph was taken during the Korean War, on the Naktong River front. The M24 tanks and their crews were opposed by North Korean T-34-85s, which were better armoured and armed, and they were replaced after sustaining heavy losses by heavier M4 tanks. The M24s were then switched to reconnaissance roles.
- Horse Gram (created by Blacknclick; nominated by Blacknclick) The horse gram ( Macrotyloma uniflorum) is a variety of bean grown mostly in the tropics, generally as cattle fodder. In India, however, especially in the south, it is often cooked or sprouted as an ingredient. The Telugu people serve this bean with boiled rice at weddings and ceremonies. The beans are rich in anti-oxidants such as polyphenols and flavonoids; they also contain lots of protein. Our article presently describes an Indian dish that uses horse gram. Please refrain from standing upwind of us if you try it.
- Lyriothemis acigastra: female and male (created by Jkadavoor; nominated by J Milburn) Lyriothemis acigastra is a rare dragonfly with a secretive nature found in India in Assam, West Bengal and, in 2013, discovered in Kerala. Their diet is made of skippers and moths. This dragonfly is active mainly at dusk and dawn.
- Japanese invasion money of Malaya and Borneo: , one cent, five cents, ten cents, fifty cents, one dollar, five dollars, ten dollars, one-hundred dollars (1944 edition), one-hundred dollars (1945 edition), and thousand dollars (created by Empire of Japan, nominated by Godot13) The Japanese government-issued dollar was a Japanese invasion currency issued by the Japanese government during the occupation of Malaya, North Borneo, Sarawak, and Brunei. The notes were called banana money because of the banana trees that illustrated the banknotes. The banknotes are part of the splendid series of currencies Godot13 is working on.
- Madonna of the Rose Garden (created by Michelino da Besozzo; nominated by Brandmeister) The Madonna of the Rose Garden is a small painting made with tempera on panel from c. 1420–1435, attributed to Michelino da Besozzo , currently in the Castelvecchio Museum of Verona, Italy. The painting shows Mary with the Child in an enchanted secret garden, in the company of angels, flowers, roses and saints, such as St. Catherine of Alexandria, depicted with her attributes the sword and the torture wheel. The two peacocks are a symbol of immortality.
- Westerlund 2 (created by NASA; nominated by Armbrust)The Westerlund 2 cluster is two million years old, and contains of about 3,000 stars, of which at least a dozen are of the hottest, brightest, and most massive stars on the Milky Way, located 20,000 light-years away. We sent one of our editors there to have a look.
- Netherlands Indies gulden coin (created by Java Mint, Netherlands Indies (coin), Heritage Auctions (image); nominated by Crisco 1492) The Netherlands Indies silver Java rupee was used in 1803 together with other Dutch, Spanish, and Asian coins on Java from the 15th century and onwards. The silver Indian rupee was a popular local coin on Java. The Arabic text on it means "dirham", and translates simply as "money". The production of silver and gold rupees continued until around 1807–1808.
- Blangkon (created and nominated by Chris Woodrich) The blangkon in this picture is a traditional Javanese headgear worn by men, made of batik fabric with applied golden decorations. The blangkons are believed to originate, according to the legend, from king Aji Saka, who brought civilization to the island and who saved Java by covering the entire land with a giant blangkon, during a conflict with evil forces. This Ngayogyakarta-style blangkon is usually worn at weddings.
- Zoroastrian Nowruz (created by Ipaat; nominated by Alborzagros) This bas-relief at Persepolis is a Zoroastrian symbolisation of the vernal equinox. The Earth, symbolised by the bull, and the Sun are eternally struggling together. At the vernal equinox their powers are equal.
- Richèl Hogenkamp (created by Kadellar; nominated by Tomer T) Tennis player Richèl Hogenkamp at the Masters in Madrid 2015, Madrid, Spain.
- Witch doctor (created by Lycaon; nominated by Tomer T) A traditional healer or nganga of the Shona people, photographed near the site of Great Zimbabwe. The nganga treats problems of illness and afflictions in his village. Although (according to ethnographer Michael Gelfand) the nganga is neither overly deferred to or feared by his fellow villagers, he acts as the "kingpin of African society" with his influence extending to the selection of tribal chiefs.
- Vocal score cover of Ariadne auf Naxos (created by Unknown artist; restored and nominated by Adam Cuerden) Ariadne auf Naxos is a short opera written by Richard Strauss, a Romantic Austrian composer. The Prologue is set in the home of "the richest man in Vienna"; the evening's after-dinner entertainment is a burlesque followed by a serious opera about Ariadne, presented by a company of saucy comediennes and a company of opera singers respectively. The dinner overruns, and because of the late hour the two companies are instructed to combine their productions, resulting in a combination of "slapstick comedy and consummately beautiful music". Just think- never in the field of human culture has anyone managed to produce a combination of "consummately beautiful comedy and slapstick music".
- Wrocław Główny railway station (created by Pudelek; nominated by Crisco 1492) Wrocław Główny railway station is situated at the junction of several main railway lines in Wrocław, Poland. It was built when the government of the German Empire invested heavily in railway construction in the 19th century, and it was known until 1945 as Breslau Hauptbahnhof ("Breslau Main Station") The image is captured by Pudelek.
- Verdi, Strauss and Halévy
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"One small step..."
Forty-six years ago this week, the
Apollo 11 mission took three men into outer space and two of them,
Neil Armstrong and
Buzz Aldrin, were the first humans to set foot on the surface of
the Moon. It was a great achievement not just in American history, but in human history, marked by Armstrong's memorable phrase "
That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." The photographs of that mission remain among the most recognizable in recent history. Of the photograph of Aldrin taken by Armstrong on the lunar surface taken, Aldrin
tweeted this week: "I have 3 words to describe why this photo Neil took of me is so iconic: Location, location, location." The final photograph is not as famous. It is a photo uploaded by a Wikimedian taken by his grandfather of his mother as a young girl during this historic moment, a great example of how ordinary Wikimedians can contribute to documenting their world and its history.
Reader comments
Tech news in brief
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from July 21. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from July 22. It will be on all Wikipedias from July 23 ( calendar).
- You now see more warnings in the image viewer. They tell you to be careful when using the image, for example if it shows a person. [1]
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on July 21 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
Tech news prepared by
tech ambassadors and posted by
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Contribute •
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Subscribe or unsubscribe.
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Change the world
I bet we got you to click with that title! Now that you're reading anyway, we want to take a moment to ask you to consider contributing to the Signpost. Before you click off the page deeming this another tedious call for contributors, there is one specific, non-time-consuming way you can help us with limited commitment: basically, we want to create a list of backup writers to whom we can turn if a regular writer is unavailable. You would never be under any obligation to contribute, but we just want a list of some people who have some basic knowledge of Wikipedia and are interested in potentially contributing once in a while. You can designate yourself for a certain section (we especially need people who can help with the arbitration report, news and notes, and in the media), or just as a generalist willing to serve as an occasional pinch hitter. Please see our informal sign-up sheet in the newsroom.
Reader comments
Wikimanía 2015; Lightbreather ArbCom case
Wikimanía draws to a close
Wikimanía 2015 drew to a close in Mexico City, Mexico. An "annual conference celebrating Wikipedia and its sister free knowledge projects", Wikimania features remarks from some leading players from the Wikimedia Foundation as well as the free knowledge movement. Overall, most attendees "were really quite impressed with how smoothly the conference went", according to Andrew Lih, who added that in terms of food and venue it was much like a corporate conference.
WMF executive director Lila Tretikov gave a presentation entitled United in Knowledge in which she encouraged Wikimedians to "be bold, break your own rules", much to the chagrin of some attendees, who view that as a misinterpretation of WP:BOLD and WP:BRD. Lih said that although the speech was somewhat unrefined, it is difficult to communicate effectively with newbies and veterans simultaneously. "I do think Lila needs a few more of these before she gets her message calibrated and seasoned", he said. "Part of it is English as her second language, and part of it is that we have a real demanding community."
Additional reaction to the keynote speeches is in this week's Wikimanía report from Peaceray, a conference attendee.
Perhaps the biggest downside, according to Lih, was the lack of video recording; only keynote speeches were recorded, leaving attendees to do their best with limited equipment – many of them expressing outrage on the special Wikimania mailing list and Twitter at what they felt was an unconscionable oversight. Speaking to the value of video recording, Lih wrote,
| “ | When a Wikipedian in Residence can show their institution the video of their Wikimania presentation as evidence of impact and engagement, it can lead to renewal of their positions and more initiatives. When the video of a Wikimania panel on COI and PR editing can convince more multi-billion dollar PR firm to understand our guidelines and terms of use, that's a major outcome. When someone talks about Wiki Loves Earth, #100wikidays or other grassroots projects, video provides a unique window into the emotions and motivations you cannot capture in a mailing list or blog post. When in 10 years, we want to know the passions and personalities that led us to where the movement is, where will we look? If we're expecting Wikimania videos to rack up the same views as LOLcats, it ain't going to happen. It has always been a very small core community does a massive amount of the innovation and work that keeps the projects going, and the ability to talk to each other in deep, complex and accessible ways is vital. | ” |
Even WMF staffer Asaf Bartov expressed agreement that the lack of video recording was problematic. The issue was even raised in June, but received no reply, something Hydriz called "rather disappointing." Other posts focused on the perceived value of video when weighed against the cost. On Twitter, one tweet bemoaned, "I thought the idea of video recording sessions was that you dont [sic] have to (go) yourself."
Ultimately, some sessions were recorded in audio only, and others with smartphone video capabilities, and posted to YouTube. At this point, it is unknown who is at fault for the lack of video, but Lih says that Ivan Martinez, the event's local coordinator, told him that "hiring the hotel or local team to do it professionally would have been very expensive", so the plan was for the WMF to handle it. Unconfirmed reports are that the staffer who was supposed to be in charge of that aspect of the conference is no longer employed by WMF. The Signpost emailed Ellie Young, the WMF's conference coordinator, multiple times seeking comment on this and other aspects of the conference. We received no response.
However, on the mailing list, WMF storyteller Victor Grigas reported that based on his conversations with "the team doing video recordings", only certain talks would be recorded because last year it was expensive to record everything, something he emphasized was not his decision. More interestingly, he said, "All the footage that the video team is shooting will be owned (copyright) by Wikimedia Mexico per their contract, so if there are particular clips you want later, contact WMMX." WMF was unable to clarify the remarks due to multiple staff vacations. The Signpost will run a follow-up story next week.
The conference was also not without technical glitches. According to several attendees in contact with the Signpost, Internet service was down for upwards of 20 minutes at one point. "[T]here seemed to be a major hiccup each day ... but otherwise I'd say it was pretty solid. Compared to other Wikimanias, I'd rate it very good. But all you need is one 20 minute stretch, at a critical time, to ruin your day", Lih said. Other attendees complained that the Internet was slow; a Phabricator ticket indicates at least one problem was rectified.
Other conference highlights included Jimmy Wales' speech, which focused on issues of Internet freedom and noted that of 234 governmental requests to remove content from Wikipedia, none were granted. Wales also gave away the bride at a wedding of two Israeli Wikipedians at the conference, Darya and Avner Kantor, whose love story was featured on the WMF blog earlier this year.
As Wikimania 2015 draws to a close, attention turns to the 2016 iteration of the conference, slated to be held in Esino Lario, Italy. Although there are serious questions as to whether infrastructure available in the small Lombardy town is conducive to a large conference such as Wikimania ( see previous Signpost coverage), at the site presentation in Mexico City, Iolanda Pensa ( Iopensa), the lead organizer for the conference, answered the question "Why Esino Lario?" simply by saying "Because we can."
Lightbreather Arbitration case
Even before it closed on July 17, the Arbitration case involving Lightbreather attracted widespread comment. Lightbreather herself posted a banner on her userpage on July 1 declaring "Retired due to sexual harassment", only returning two weeks later to make edits to the talk page of the proposed decision.
The language in one of the proposed principles attracted widespread comment. Regarding the inability of the community and the Committee to effectively address serious cases of harassment, the principle suggested that victims should consider "lowering their profile until the threat is past". This prompted objections on- and off-wiki. SlimVirgin wrote that the proposed decision supports the idea that "women who are being baited are expected to keep quiet or stop editing". A number of the Arbitrators agreed. One of them, Euryalus, wrote "I opposed the reference to people being advised to keep quiet and lower their profile of harassed, for precisely the reason you outline - it tells people to let the harassers win. What we should be telling people is to make a fuss about harassment through the right channels, and for those channels to work well enough that the harassment gets dealt with." The offending language was removed by Roger Davies on July 13 "in an endeavour to achieve consensus".
Despite this, the final decision, which included a site-ban for Lightbreather, was still controversial on-wiki and attracted comment offsite. Brianna Wu, a game developer who has been the victim of significant harassment herself, tweeted: "The whole case is shameful. She asked Wiki to take action against sexual harassers, they didn't. They ban her, no punishment for harassers." On User talk:Jimbo Wales, Robert McClenon placed the blame on the Wikimedia Foundation, not on the Arbitration Committee: "My opinion is that the WMF has not done enough. Off-wiki harassment of Wikipedia editors is an existential threat to the neutrality of Wikipedia...Off-wiki harassment is a threat both to the neutrality of Wikipedia and the editors of Wikipedia." CorporateM began an RFC asking whether or not Wikipedia should have "a sexual harassment policy or a part of the harassment policy focused on sexual harassment."
Coverage of the case itself will appear in next week's Arbitration Report.
Brief notes
- New user-groups: The Affiliations Committee announced the approval of this week's newest Wikimedia movement affiliates, the Wikimedians of Korea User Group, the Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group, the Iranian Wikimedians User Group, the WikiWomen's User Group, and the Wikimedia Community User Group Belarus. GP!
- Wikimedia Board names new chair and vice chair: Jan-Bart de Vreede announced that the Wikimedia Board of Trustees had elected Patricio Lorente chair and Alice Wiegand vice-chair. Lorente is presently the vice-chair of the Board, and will replace de Vreede. He was appointed by Wikimedia Argentina, and has been on the board since 2012. Wiegand is an appointed member of the Board who is currently a liaison to the Affiliations Committee. She also has been on the board since 2012. GP!
- Victory in Italy: The Wikimedia blog reported that an Italian court ruled in favor of the Wikimedia Foundation on a case pertaining to defamation. An excerpt from the court's opinion states, "[N]eutrality of the hosting provider does not disappear just because the [WMF], when informed of potentially illicit content of some of the material uploaded … may intervene to remove it." Geoff Brigham, WMF's chief legal counsel, views the case as a vindication of the Wikipedia model that allows for self-correction by its contributors, and called the ruling "a victory for all Wikipedians and for freedom of speech on the Internet." GP!
- Goan Konkani Wikipedia launched: The Goan Konkani Wikipedia has officially launched after nine years in incubation. The Konkani language has 7.4 million speakers and is the official language of Goa, a state in western India. Much of the work has been the result of a project in conjunction with Goa University. The Konkani Wikipedia currently has 372 articles and 344 active users. It is 258th out of 290 Wikipedias by size on the List of Wikipedias. See also the WMF blog post on the launch. G
- Wikimedia DC announces book grant program: Wikimedia DC announced a new book grant program, offering grants of up to $500 to Wikimedians in the United States to purchase books to be used for creating and improving Wikipedia articles. This is similar to a 2014 book grant program that The Wikipedia Library created for editors on the Arabic Wikipedia. G
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Wikimanía 2015 report, part 1, the plenaries
The conference venue
The main conference of Wikimanía 2015 occurred from Friday through Sunday, the 17 to 19 July, at the Hotel Hilton Mexico City Reforma, across from the Alameda Central in the historic center of Mexico City. The education pre-conference and hackathon took place the two days before the main conference.
The plenary talks
Lila Tretikov
Iván Martínez, the Wikimanía 2015 coordinator, welcomed the attendees on Friday, then introduced WMF's executive director, Lila Tretikov, who gave the opening plenary address. First, she briefly listed her diverse meetings with WikiArabia, Wikimedia Israel, the Wikimedia Conference 2015, the Wikimedians of the Levant, and Wikimedia Polska, and teleconferencing with the Museo Soumaya editathon. Tretikov compared the growth of Wikimedia to that of cultivating grapes, evolving from seedlings to a cohesive and productive vineyard, in which “together, we are more than the sum of us”. She noted our current challenges: five billion people newly online in this next decade, fast-moving and technology-savvy users, the expanding role of artificial intelligence in knowledge creation, changing knowledge formats, and the opportunities presented by institutions eager to share their knowledge. Tretikov then outlined the strategy consultation that the WMF undertakes with editors across many countries, Wikimedia projects, and languages, and the WMF's desire to partner technology and our communities for innovation. She cited new tools such as editing and adding citations in Visual Editor, Revscore, content translation (including a recommendation algorithm to match translators with missing articles), and new mobile tools (e.g., collections). She noted that the 2015 election of three WMF board members was a team effort in process improvement and editor/voter outreach. Tretikov closed by recommending that we be bold, return to openness and collaboration, focus on what we love and let go of the rest, unite and integrate our work, and embrace diversity.
A pdf from Tretikov 's presentation is here.
Luis von Ahn
Luis von Ahn, co-founder of ReCAPTCHA and duoLingo, spoke on Saturday. He explained that after initially developing this widely used version of the captcha, he grew to feel guilty about occupying users' time solely to distinguish between humans and bots, and that as a result of this ambivalence he had developed a means of presenting a second word in the captcha to aid in translating textual images from scanned books that are unreadable by computers. By pairing an unknown word image with a known one, the captcha server program would use the known word in the image pair to verify the user as human, and would record the response for the unknown word in the image pair until enough human responses were obtained to reliably identify its meaning.
After selling ReCAPTCHA to Google in 2009, he turned his attention to the educational needs of the underprivileged in countries like his birth place of Guatemala, where there is a great need for an inexpensive means to learn English for economic advancement. Thus, duoLingo was born, a free app and web application that required only a smart phone or a computer to use. Honed by applying lessons learned from usability statistics obtained by automated feedback, duoLingo has more than 100 million registered users, and has been extended to a dozen language pairs, although it is largely limited to those of Roman script.
Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Wales delivered the closing remarks. He concentrated on the freedom-of-expression issues that some Wikipedia users and editors are experiencing. He listed two examples and a related philosophical conundrum:
- The initial total blocking of Wikipedia by the Chinese government, followed by a period of filtered blocking of individual pages, then back to a total ban when WMF instituted HTTPS as the web protocol for accessing Wikipedia. He stressed that one of the arguments he would use in his discussion with the Chinese government on the WMF's behalf was that because of the government's blocking actions, the perspective of China within Wikipedia would be represented only by editors outside mainland China
- There are editors who are intimidated and threatened due to their work. In particular, Wales recounted the story of an editor who simply had recorded the results of anti-government protests in Venezuela, including it in articles and uploading photographs to Commons. This editor received death threats and fled the country as result. Venezuela then revoked his passport, leaving him in a legal limbo in which he cannot return to his country or travel elsewhere, and is uncertain of his refugee status where he is.
- The philosophical conundrum that Wales presented was the problem of reliably citing articles about topics that are within countries in which the mass media is controlled by the government. In these cases, the only available references may be those that the government permits.
Wales' announcement of Wikipedian of the year was made in pectore, meaning that he did not reveal the name at this time because doing so has the potential to bring reprisal or harm to the recipient. He also named two honorable mentions, Susanna Mkrtchyan, president of Wikimedia Armenia who has recently been instrumental in promoting the Western Armenian Wikipedia (see also the Signpost coverage), and Satdeep Gill for his contributions and promotion of the Punjabi Wikipedia.
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Novelists annotate Wikipedia; Wales promotes TPO; Working for free
Three novelists annotate their Wikipedia articles
The magazine New York reports that three novelists "have found a way to control the Wikipedia narrative" by using the annotation website Genius to annotate their own Wikipedia articles. They have supplied numerous thoughtful and introspective comments about their work, friends, and collaborators, which are sure to be mined for future Wikipedia edits. They have also made substantial comments about the effect their Wikipedia articles have had on them, an in-depth reflection that is rarely seen from the subject of an article—more common are angry complaints or passing comments in an interview. New York writes that these authors have used Genius "mostly as a way to play with the form but also as a way to correct, explain, and rewrite a story that someone else has written about them." (July 16)
Emily Gould
Emily Gould (Friendship) wrote about her article:
| “ | I’ve always really hated my Wikipedia page—it’s so far away from how I think of myself and my career. It’s made me think of Wikipedia differently as a research tool—I take it with a massive, whopping, deer-lick-sized grain of salt. A lot of my page isn’t exactly inaccurate, it’s just from a bizarre standpoint. This is never what a human would sit down and write—even a human who really hated me. Who is Emily Gould, what does she do? What is an Emily Gould? This is like the accrual of all of the moments when the internet has been paying attention to me minus the ones that actually mattered. | ” |
One of those moments is the subject of the greater part of the text in her Wikipedia article, a "Criticism" section devoted to a 2007 panel discussion on the CNN show Larry King Live, where Gould, who was co-editor of Gawker at the time, was confronted about a Gawker feature by Jimmy Kimmel. She wrote:
| “ | This section feels disproportionate to the rest of my page. I get four sentences for “Career” and then “Criticism” is two paragraphs that end with a sad note about how I had to get therapy? That isn’t cool ... I’ve never looked at Jimmy Kimmel’s Wikipedia page but I’m sure it has a better “Criticism” to “Career” ratio. | ” |
Gould reflected on the classification of her occupation as "writer, editor, blogger":
| “ | I guess I’ve got to cut Wikipedia some slack because what do I do really? What would I call that? I would like to be known as an author—that seems like a thing that I am. I wrote some books. Author means “wrote books.” | ” |
Gould also noted that her birth year (cited to a 2014 print publication) was incorrect and wrote of her dislike of her infobox photo, taken by a Wikimedian in 2009:
| “ | This photo is so bad. I know Wikipedia basically has to use some stock photo that some random person took of you because they can’t use anything that anyone wants to claim the rights to. They can’t use for example my author photo or any photo of me that has ever been in a magazine or a newspaper. They can’t use a photo that was taken by a photographer. That’s why everyone’s Wikipedia photo is so terrible.
I can’t remember exactly what I was doing in the photo—I think I was moderating some panel. 2009 was the year I took yoga teacher training and I was the chubbiest I have ever been in my life. It’s also a bad angle and I’m also wearing this weird leather vest that’s kind of popping at the seams. It’s just the worst photo and I hate it so much. |
” |
Sheila Heti
The article for Sheila Heti (How Should a Person Be?) describes her as "a Canadian writer and editor". Heti wrote, "I don’t feel particularly connected to Canadian literature" and "I don’t know why it says, 'and editor' at the top. I always find that kind of weird." Of her inclusion in the category Category:Canadian women novelists, Heti concurred with Amanda Filipacchi's prominent criticism of Wikipedia's gender categories (see previous Signpost coverage) and wrote, "I think it would be better not to have this category at all." She was, however, pleased with her inclusion in Category:Living people, quipping "This is the best category to be in."
Like Gould, Heti objected to her infobox photo, which was also taken by a Wikimedian, this one in 2013. Unlike Gould, Heti removed it "because it was the worst photo that had ever been taken of me. It was a camera photo from a bad angle, blurry, and I felt I looked disgusting. I considered replacing it but I felt too cautious and left it blank."
Heti reflected on Wikipedia's ability to magnify and propagate minor comments and incidents. Included in her article is a comment from a 2007 interview in which she said, "Increasingly I'm less interested in writing about fictional people." Heti wrote:
| “ | I don’t know who put that in there. For a while, every person who interviewed me referenced it. It’s such a tell: you instantly know that someone has done basically no research and has only read your Wikipedia page. It’s been practically ten years since I said this—interests change. It’s funny how one thing you say can become so big when one person thinks to put it on your Wikipedia page. People think it’s more important than everything else because it’s on Wikipedia. | ” |
Chris Kraus
Chris Kraus ( I Love Dick) discussed the creation of her article in August 2006:
| “ | This was originally put up by my friend Ariana Reines. There was a time when everyone was getting Wiki pages, which I guess was around the time of Ariana’s The Cow—that’s the way we’re dating it—which was 2006. Suddenly you had to have a Wikipedia page—it was the go-to thing. So everybody had to have one and that’s why I asked Ariana to do it, as part of a trade. She did me a favor, and I did her a favor. What did I do in exchange? I really don’t remember. Maybe I blurbed her book? But that seems like a lot to ask in exchange for writing a whole wiki page! I hope I did more than that. | ” |
Her current opinion of the article, however, is negative:
| “ | I’ve never read my Wikipedia page. It’s horrible, too embarrassing. My understanding is that anybody can go in and change it at any point. I looked at it once and it was just so awry and inaccurate. I realized there was no point fixing it or paying attention to it because it was out of my control, so I wasn’t going to think about it. | ” |
Wales promotes The People's Operator US launch
The People's Operator is a UK-based mobile virtual network operator and social networking service which allows its customers to direct 10% of what they spend to charities of their choice. TPO is coming to the United States, and TPO chairman Jimmy Wales is the public face of their rollout. Wales told Vanity Fair that he saw parallels between his work for TPO and Wikipedia: "I’ve discovered in my work that if you can give people the tools they're looking for, that allow them to accomplish the goals that they have for themselves, they can do amazing things. Here, if you want to raise money for your local hospital, we can give you the tools to do that." In a wide-ranging interview with HuffPost Live, Wales touched on a number of topics besides TPO. (July 21)
When asked about the Sunshine Sachs controversy (see previous Signpost coverage), Wales encouraged PR companies to be "transparent" and said of undisclosed paid editing:
| “ | I think it's a really bad idea for them to do this, because they get caught and it embarrasses their clients. There's better ways to deal with Wikipedia. You know, we're very open, people can email us and say 'we've got this correction, we've got this information' and sometimes unethical PR people—and there are lots and lots of ethical PR people—but the unethical ones think 'I'll just make up a fake ID and pretend to be someone' and so one and it embarrasses their client and so on. It's like, you could have just sent us an email, you could have just gone to the talk page and said 'hey, there's a problem here, here's some sources', you know. The community is very passionate about getting it right. | ” |
Wales spoke about Wikipedia's involvement in the NSA lawsuit (see previous Signpost coverage) and his reaction to British Prime Minister David Cameron's call to ban encryption:
| “ | I think it's just technological incompetence. One of the most important things we can do is improve the security of the internet. ... and that means end-to-end encryption everywhere. That's what he should be campaigning for. And just the idea that you can ban encryption, or ban end-to-end encryption, is just nonsense. It's impossible, it's math. You can't ban math. | ” |
Wales reflected on changing perceptions of the quality of Wikipedia over the years:
| “ | The community's always been passionate about quality. But of course, when you first start writing, and when you've first got a small group of people ... it's going to be incomplete, it's going to be weak in various ways, but because we've maintained a passion for doing something amazing for the world, for really getting it right, then over the years it just continues to improve. So we've earned a little bit of respect, but we've still got a long way to go. | ” |
One of those ways is the gender gap:
| “ | The gender balance in the community is not good, and this leads to certain kinds of biases in the content. When your typical Wikipedian is a technical person, tech geek, 26 year old male, no kids, there's a certain profile of a typical Wikipedia user, which means they're very, very interested in some topics and they know very little and not very interested in some topics. So we want to have people from very diverse backgrounds who'll have an interest in all kinds of different subjects, because then they can build quality work in the areas that we're currently neglecting. | ” |
Working for free
In the wake of the volunteer moderator uprising on the social media website Reddit, Caitlin Dewey of the Washington Post examines how and why people work for free on websites on the social web. As she bluntly puts it "A century ago, you might’ve dubbed it robber-barony or sharecropping — if not, you know, outright slavery. In 2015, though, we call it the social Web: a glorious dystopia where everybody works for likes — as in, “for free” — while a handful of tech tycoons profit." Dewey notes that the free labor of Wikipedia's volunteers "plays a large role in the $51 million in donations that Wikipedia scored last year — and also in the staggering $16.5 billion in revenue that Google reported in 2014", especially due to the inclusion of Wikipedia data in Google's Knowledge Graph.
Dewey spoke with Justin Knapp ( Koavf), the most prolific of those volunteers who is at the top of the List of Wikipedians by number of edits. Dewey writes "With nearly 1.5 million contributions, the 33-year-old Wikipedian is more active on the site than literally anyone else — including members of the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation’s paid staff." Dewey contrasts the billions taken in by tech companies with Knapp's life in Indianapolis, where he works three jobs and drives a fifteen-year-old car. She identifies Knapp's motivation with the sociological term "affective currency", which describes intangible motivations and benefits that such people get out of their work. Knapp says "I understand that some people want to be paid to do what they love. But when you put a number on the thing you love, it can't be priceless. If you don't put a number on it, you assign the value and the meaning to it, yourself — you don't negotiate that with the market."
Efforts to compensate such volunteer labor are still in their infancy. One idea mentioned by Dewey was offered by Wikipedian Dorothy Howard ( Vaughn88) last year in an essay where she raised "the question of compensating certain classes of 'super-editors' for major contributions." She suggested following the model of YouTube's Partner Program by compensating those editors through donations to Wikipedia. She wrote "This type of project would allow for more fair digital labor practices and would compensate viewers for their major contributions to the site's legitimacy as a reliable source." (July 22)
Congressman's bizarre tweet prompts Wikipedia vandalism
On July 17, a pro- immigration reform Twitter account posted a picture of Julian Castro, the Democratic Party United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, along with a statement he made on MSNBC regarding the possibility of Latino voters favoring the Republican Party: "The GOP can kiss the Latino vote goodbye." Republican Congressman Steve King of Iowa, tweeted in response "What does Julian Castro know? Does he know that I'm as Hispanic and Latino as he?"
The meaning of King's tweet is unclear. King, who is of Irish, Welsh, and German ancestry, is not Latino, as many critics on Twitter immediately pointed out. NBC News notes that "King is not listed among Hispanic members of the House in a list kept by the House Press Gallery." However, Castro was born in San Antonio, Texas and is of Mexican descent. NBC News and Politico speculated that the tweet was in reference to reports that Castro is not fluent in Spanish. (Many Americans of Latino descent do not speak Spanish.) Both news outlets reported that King's office did not respond to their requests for clarification.
A number of political news outlets and blogs, including Mediaite, Salon, and Raw Story, noted that King's Wikipedia article was quickly updated to reflect King's declaration. "Hispanic" was added to his Irish, Welsh, and German ancestry, cited to the tweet. His name was translated into Spanish from "Steven Arnold 'Steve' King" to "Esteban Arnoldo 'Steba' Rey". A comment was added claiming King admitted to being "the child or grandchild of illegal immigrants." All of these changes were quickly reverted. Unlike most cases of vandalism driven by off-site events, the vandalism quickly subsided and article protection was not required. Two days later, however, King's infobox picture was replaced with that of professional wrestler Rey Mysterio.
King has a history of offensive and racially-charged remarks about Latinos and immigrants. Most notoriously, in 2013 he said of the children of illegal immigrants: "For every one who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert."
In brief
- Bollywood flops: The International Business Times notes the appearance of some Bollywood films, including Aag, Machhli Jal Ki Rani Hai, and Humshakals, in the article List of films considered the worst. (July 23)
- In other political vandalism: The Washington Post reported that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's Wikipedia article was "essentially deleted" twice, the second time being replaced with the statement ""Lets [ sic] be fair, nobody cares about him." The article had been semi-protected since July 10, but the vandalism was performed by autoconfirmed accounts. The editors were warned and the vandalism was quickly reverted. (July 22)
- Konkani Wikipedia launched: The Times of India reports on the launch of the Konkani Wikipedia, nine years in the making. See this week's News and Notes for more details. (July 19)
- India makes the Top 25: The Times of India reports on the presence of the articles Vyapam scam and Baahubali on the Top 25 Report of most viewed Wikipedia articles. (July 19)
- Wikipedians in Residence: Inside Higher Ed and Times Higher Education both discuss the new Wikipedian in Residence at the West Virginia University and the WiR program in general. (July 17, 20)
- Offline reading: Gizmodo explains how to save Wikipedia articles for offline access using the official apps for Android and iOS. (July 17)
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The Nerds, They Are A-Changin'
Summary: When I was a kid, being a nerd meant wanting to go to Pluto. Well now we have gone to Pluto and all my fellow nerds want to talk about is Comic Con and the latest Marvel movie. It seems seeing a trailer for a movie they're all going to see anyway is more important than viewing landscapes as yet unseen by human eyes and unlikely to be seen again. And no, my peevishness has nothing to do with my being the chief editor of the Pluto article. Well, maybe a bit.
For the full top-25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions. For a list of the most edited articles of the week, see here.
As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of July 12 to 18, 2015, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:
Rank Article Class Views Image Notes 1 Suicide Squad
1,817,973 DC Comics' ramshackle crew of pressganged supervillains, forced to do the will of a shadowy organization or let their heads explode, are the stars of one of the most anticipated films in the upcoming DC Cinematic Universe. This week, at San Diego Comic Con, Warner Bros released the film's first trailer, which, from the Wikipedia views, seems to have gotten the fans more excited than the upcoming Batman vs. Superman movie. 2 Joaquín Guzmán Loera
1,671,857 This ruthless narco-trafficker, boss of the Sinaloa cartel and reportedly the world's 14th richest man, became an enduring folk hero and the subject of a hundred " narcocorridos" (folk songs glorying the deeds of the great drug lords) after he escaped from a top-security prison in 2001. He was on the lam for 13 years before his recapture in 2014. And now, get ready to tune up your guitars mariachis, because he just did it again. On 11 July, he escaped his prison cell through a tunnel under the shower; by sheer coincidence the only blind spot for the surveillance cameras. If, at this point, you're having flashbacks to The Shawshank Redemption, ditch them: the tunnel was professionally constructed, contained electric lighting, was 1.7 metres tall and 1.5 km long, and included a motorcycle. And no one noticed it being built. Apparently. Oh, and despite being the world's most wanted fugitive, he apparently has an active Twitter account with half a million followers. Frustratingly (but appropriately) the views for this article are a bit dodgy, since they all appear to be for his longer name, which is a redirect. Still, the mobile count is good and the topic is valid, so I can't really argue. 3 Suicide Squad (film)
1,608,426 See #1. 4 Pluto
1,491,263 Does it ever astonish you how often things work? We had one, just one, chance to get this right, and after 11 years in political limbo, three years in development, and nine years in space, everything hinged on a series of pre-programmed actions performed over the course of just 22 hours by a computer 4.7 billion miles away. During that time, the probe was radio silent; we had no idea if it had survived or not. If we hadn't received its bleep of hello then the entire mission would have been for nothing, and it is doubtful I or any of you would have seen the results in our lifetime. Think on that. And then remember that this event was out-viewed by an escaped drug lord and the trailer for a comic book movie. 5 Satoru Iwata
1,253,657 The famously ebullient CEO of Nintendo, who often incorporated bananas and caricature puppets into his presentations, winning him the admiration of gamers, died suddenly of cancer this week at the age of just 55. The first CEO of the company not related to the founding Yamauchi family in its 128-year history, he nonetheless strictly maintained its ethos that Nintendo products were for everyone, not just children or adults. In a moment that could have come from one of their games, a rainbow appeared over Nintendo's Kyoto HQ on the day his death was announced. 6 Novak Djokovic
857,933 The Wimbledon Men's (sorry, Gentlemen's) singles final wasn't held until the 12th, which meant that Best Tennis Player of All TimeTM Roger Federer got all the attention last week, before his final defeat at the hands of this Serbian wunderkind, who appropriately now gets his due. And he should; he won last year too. 7 Baahubali (film)
853,839 At $41 million, this sprawling, two-part historical epic is the most expensive film in Indian history (no, it isn't actually Bollywood, since it was made in South India, much to Bollywood's chagrin). Starring the Telugu actor Prabhas (pictured), the first part, subtitled "The Beginning", broke box office records upon its release on July 10, earning Rs 2.15 billion ($34 million) worldwide in just 5 days. 8 Ant-Man (film)
846,555 Personal editorial alert: As an avid fan of Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, and Hot Fuzz (I said I was a nerd), I was wary when writer/director Edgar Wright unceremoniously dumped the highest-profile project of his career because Marvel Studios refused to give him full creative control, particularly since Marvel kept this project alive for a decade mainly because he was interested in it. Afraid the damage caused by his departure would be irreparable, I began to speculate if there was a "Number 12 curse"; that no studio, no matter how beloved or respected, can go 12 movies without a critical bomb. Pixar's 12th was Cars 2; this was Marvel's. Well, they managed to avoid the critical mauling (the film's RT score is a decent 79%, though critics in my UK home have been crueller- no doubt in solidarity with Edgar), but the box office is somewhat iffy; while it opened at #1 (like every other Marvel Studios film to date), it had the lowest per-screen average of any film in the franchise. The film could still be buoyed by good word of mouth however. 9 New Horizons
839,290 The fastest spacecraft ever launched finally reached its destination after 9 years of traversing the interplanetary void. It may not be as cute as Sojourner but it is a stalwart little thing which, as several memes pointed out this week, cost less taxpayer money than several refurbished stadiums. And its mission isn't even over yet; the team hopes to redirect it to another Kuiper belt object before it leaves the Solar System's charted regions. 10 Roger Federer
791,565 The man widely regarded as the best tennis player of all time lost the Wimbledon title to Novak Djokovic in a titanic 7-6, 6-7, 6-4, 6-3 showdown.
Reader comments
Some more politics
- 2ReinreB2 is attempting to revive the Percy Jackson Task-force (located here) and has also suggested that this project's scope be expanded, maybe even to the point of renaming the project. The proposal in brief. Would appreciate the help of any interested users.
- If you would like your WikiProject featured in the report, please submit a request at the WikiProject Desk
Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.
An active project which we haven't for some reason interviewed here before: WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom. Taking us through the polling booth and beyond are JRPG, This is Paul, and Cloptonson.
What motivated you to join WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom? Are you active on the political scene, even held office, or just interested?
- JRPG: I'm a member of a political party with a place on the executive committee of my local constituency. I studied 'British Constitution' at school which started a lifelong interest. I led a local political campaign about lost pensions under Ros Altmann's leadership and appeared numerous times on TV including The Politics Show. I met about 20 MPs and several ministers over a period of 5 years and also worked as a volunteer in an MP's office. There I learnt how to avoid letters being intercepted by parliamentary assistants & hence ensure the MP sees my letter. I also learnt of the persuasive power of a local newspaper relative to the whips.
- This is Paul: I've always been interested in politics, largely I think because I was growing up during a decade when the country was undergoing some dramatic changes, and I realised the decisions our politicians were making affected so many aspects of our day-to-day lives. I haven't personally been politically active though. At university I took a degree in business studies, although the course encompassed some aspects of politics as well, and was a student in the years preceding the 1997 general election. I remember it as an interesting time to be at university. I suppose I saw joining the project as a way of improving our coverage of the topic, and hope I've made a small contribution to that end, as well as expanding my own political knowledge.
- Cloptonson: English law was my best O-level subject and political history was my major topic of interest when studying at A-level (though I got poor exam results for health reasons) and I grew up in a politically aware paternal family with a propensity to support Labour. None of them achieved political office (my father – born under Ramsay Macdonald and died under Tony Blair) and a paternal great uncle were respectively unsuccessful local council Labour and Liberal candidates). To the best of my knowledge, I am unrelated to any past or present MPs, which gives me a freedom from vested interests when working on biographies. I was working on Wikipedia's biographical and constituency articles before I joined the project. What did get me to join was to advertise my interest in biographical facts about MPs and encourage help about potential records. I have flagged up contenders for shortest lived MPs, first Christian Scientist and first Spiritualist Church MPs, youngest woman MP to die in office, heaviest Prime Minister, to mention a few.
Have you contributed to any of the project's 46 featured articles, 6 featured lists, and 89 good articles? Are you currently working on promoting an article to FA or GA status?
- JRPG: Yes, I read BBC, Guardian, Telegraph, Times & Independent and contribute news items on an ad-hoc basis from those.
- This is Paul: I've taken several articles through the GA process ( 2010 United Kingdom government formation and Johann Lamont being two), but only have one UK politics featured article at present ( A Journey). Shortly I plan to take Scottish Labour Party leadership election, 2014 through FAC and hope to see that promoted later in the year. On a wider note, with Scotland taking an increased responsibility for deciding its own affairs I'd like to improve other Scottish politics related stuff.
- Cloptonson: I have opportunely contributed information on events and firsts/lasts/onlys to the List of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom and biographical details (not all on political activity) to articles on Benjamin Disraeli, Horatio Bottomley, Neville Chamberlain, Ellen Wilkinson, George Lansbury, and Sir Isaac Newton (the scientist few people may know was twice an MP). I leave it to others to decide if my contribution to a not-yet FA or GA article leads to it being voted as such. (If any contribution of mine does have a factor, please let me know!)
How did the project manage when dealing with the recent general election in the UK? Was there any co-ordination in updating unfolding results and coverage?
- JRPG: Unfortunately there was a major problem with WP:SPAs from UKIP unaware of the rules and writing their own usually uncited opinion of candidates. Also some candidates using what looked like PR men to write their article. In some cases I think I could even recognise the style. The Telegraph and Guardian both published instances of where favourable edits came from within Parliament and I was one of the editors who updated the pages to show this poor behaviour. IPs, however, did help to get the result out.
- This is Paul: A large event such as a general election always presents a challenge, but I think we were successful in staying up to speed with it. My own contribution was a couple of biographies about newly-elected MPs, which I'm now working to expand.
- Cloptonson: I agree with This is Paul. I contributed minimally, with adding voting figures for that general election in some of the constituencies in my home county, Shropshire, the day after polling, and minor biographical details for one (subsequently unsuccessful) candidate incumbent MP and a former MP who declared support for a party other than one he sat for.
Does WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom collaborate with any other WikiProjects, such as WP Law or the politics of another country? Has the project taken advantage of Wikipedia's sister projects, like Wikisource or the Commons?
- JRPG: I'm not aware of any collaboration. I have a strong interest in Law and believe that lawyers on both sides in the Commons make a disproportionate contribution, particularly on select committees. They are also in contact with ordinary people.
- This is Paul: There are a few country-specific politics projects, like the one for Australia, but I'm also not aware of any collaboration between them. I'm sure there's scope for it to happen though. Sadly the parent Politics project seems to be largely inactive at present.
Is it difficult to find images to illustrate political articles? What topics are most in need of diagrams and photography?
- JRPG: That's made me think! My father was a professional photographer and I always regarded his caption as crucial. A captioned photograph showing inner city deprivation might win a newspaper award but it could be both intrusive and potentially wp:npov. Showing floods, a posh new bridge or hospital facilities etc. would be less so as those are of community importance. I often ring constituency offices to ask for MP photographs but have had a lot of problems getting them to understand the real need to return the email necessary to renounce copyright. Maddening! Irrespective of our opinion of an MPs views, we should provide the best photographs available and that means ones that they're happy with.
- Cloptonson: An authentic portrait or picture of a sculpture is always welcome. Via talk pages and unbiased by political sympathy I have flagged up a few pictures that I had reason to doubt were of the subject of the article, and urge someone to find a replacement for the cycle-helmeted pic chosen for Sir Peter Bottomley's article to do his features better justice!
Which political party do you vote for, and why? Does that party usually win in your home constituency?
- JRPG: I make a point of NOT stating my political party -and have been accused of bias by both main parties when reducing wp:undue expense-related verbiage. Despite being a wp:rs the Telegraph got completely carried away in a number of cases during the United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal. I have never lived in a constituency where the candidate has won and even when I moved to a marginal, the boundary commission went and scuppered my plans. However I don't hesitate to write to my MP or visit him if I feel I have a contribution to make. I always assume he will work with me to help his constituents regardless of political differences. Usually if you make that clear they will help.
- This is Paul: I support the Labour Party, but a Labour candidate hasn't been elected in my constituency for some years. Sadly though declaring my political allegiance has led to accusations of bias, particularly from the occasional " cybernat" while editing articles about Scottish politics, but I endeavour to be neutral in my contributions to Wikipedia.
- Cloptonson: I have voted mainly for Labour candidates but I do not let my personal sympathies get in the way of helping to build a good biography of a politician from another party. My home constituency in England is predominately Conservative voting and since 1923 only had a non-Conservative MP in 1997–2005. I have also worked on job creation stints for local government and since 1987 have been continually employed in a central government department (where my Wikipedian activity is known among my colleagues), which gives me an added insight into our political system but I do not misuse Wikipedia to leak restricted information or to feed comments on contentious current issues – nor do I access Wikipedia during my working hours, unlike the Liverpool civil servant who got sacked having made comments on the Hillsborough football ground tragedy.
What are WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom's most urgent needs? How can a new member help today?
- JRPG: A new member familiar with WP:Suggested sources, wp:Editorial wp:NPOV, WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV and WP:UNDUE could reads and improve many political articles. I am saddened at the number of new IPs who are clearly interested in politics but who vandalise articles with uncited opinion. I'm now trying to be friendly, asking if they can contribute using a suitable source and offering to help.
- This is Paul: We have a lot of short articles that need expanding, particularly those about members of the UK's various legislative bodies. A good starting point might be to find a subject that interests you then work on improving it. The use of quality sources such as the BBC, The Guardian, The Independent and The Telegraph to support new material is of paramount importance though. Adopting the article about your local MP, MSP, AM, etc, might also be a good way to get started.
- Cloptonson: I agree with This is Paul's suggestion about adopting a local legislator, this would spread the burden. I am particularly watchful of articles on Shropshire politicians.
Anything else you'd like to add?
- JRPG: In politics it's important to avoid wp:editorialising and properly quantify achievements. The main parties assess a candidate by comparing his achievement with that of his party as a whole, e.g. how the swing in his constituency compares with the national average. We need to make sure people know how to do this. Also to define what is notable -every MP has campaigned to save their local hospital.
- This is Paul: I think the important thing to remember with a topic like politics is that it's essential to approach it from a neutral point of view. Often you may find yourself working on articles about people whose opinions you do not share and subjects with which you profoundly disagree, so you need to have a balanced perspective.
- Cloptonson: I too avoid editorialising and partisan bias.
Reader comments
The sleep of reason produces monsters
- 73rd Academy Awards
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Featured articles
Three Featured articles were promoted this week.
- Capon Chapel ( nominated by West Virginian) Capon Chapel is situated two miles south of Capon Bridge, West Virginia, USA. It's a small church, built from logs in the 1850s. The area was a stronghold of the Baptists in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and there was probably a Baptist church on the site. The first burial in the cemetery occurred in 1816, but the first certain mention of a church was in a land grant of 1852, referring to a house of worship "for the use of all orthodox Christians". Primarily used by the Baptists until the early part of last century, it became a stop on the local Methodist preachers' circuit, and as Baptist use declined, the Methodists became the chapel's users and carers. Today it is part of the United Methodist Church.
- Tom Simpson ( nominated by BaldBoris) One of Britain's most successful racing cyclists, Tom Simpson competed victoriously in several professional cycle races, including the Tour de France, the Tour of Flanders, the Bordeaux–Paris race, the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games, and the 1956 Summer Olympics. Simpson learned to ride the bicycle at the age of twelve and a year later he joined a cycling club where he participated in his first road race. Simpson collapsed and died at the age of 29 in the thirteenth stage of the 1967 Tour de France, during the ascent of Mont Ventoux. His collapse was caused by high daytime temperatures (reaching up to 53° C) combined with his having mixed amphetamines and alcohol.
- Witches' Sabbath (The Great He-Goat) ( nominated by Ceoil) An excellent art article from our art expert Ceoil and company. Francisco Goya painted Witches' Sabbath in the early 1820s, in oils on the plaster wall of his home near Madrid. It's one of a set of fourteen murals that Goya left to his grandson, along with the house, when the artist left for exile. Goya gave neither title nor explanation for any of them. The Sabbath has been interpreted as Satan in the form of a goat, dominating a group of fearful witches. To the right sits an enigmatic young girl. Goya was an artist of peculiar imagination, who in his so-called Black Paintings mocked clerical institutions and ridiculed the stereotypes of witches and the grotesque side of their festivities and ceremonies. He portrayed ugly and malformed figures whose hideousness he accentuated with the use of loose brushwork. The grotesque faces provide a scary, frenzied atmosphere to his pictures. They have been seen as his artistic response to a "first-hand and acute awareness of panic, terror, fear and hysteria." Or something like that....
Featured lists
Two Featured lists were promoted this week.
- 73rd Academy Awards ( nominated by Birdienest81) Honoring films from the year 2000, the Best Picture Oscar went to Gladiator, Ridley Scott's Roman fighting epic which was probably the worst of the five nominees from that year. It took home five wins, including Best Actor for Russell Crowe, but notably no wins for its director or screenwriters, a first for a Best Picture since 1949. Best Director went to Steven Soderbergh; his films Traffic and Erin Brockovich both received nominations for Best Picture and Best Director, the latter nomination making him the third person to ever get double nominations for directing. Playing the title role in the David and Goliath story Erin Brockovich won Julia Roberts Best Actress. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon didn't win any of the major awards it was nominated for, but picked up four Oscars, including one for its stunning score by Tan Dun. Two of the best films of 2000, O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Almost Famous, were snubbed, receiving only nominations for minor categories, and no wins.
- List of works by Dorothy L. Sayers ( nominated by SchroCat) Dorothy Leigh Sayers was a prolific English intellectual writer, essayist, poet, playwright and Christian humanist. She is best known nowadays for her "whodunits" featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, the gentleman detective, who has as his special hobby solving mysteries. He is a funny and sophisticated character – not the hardboiled trenchcoat-wearing detective, but the well educated and cerebral gentleman, with exquisite taste in wine, cars, clothing and books. Her first detective novel, Whose Body?, from 1923, features the naked body of a man wearing pince-nez, left in someone's bathtub as a joke. In the 1930s Sayers ceased writing crime stories and turned instead to religious plays and essays, and to translating literary works, from medieval French and Italian into English. These included Tristan by Thomas of Britain, and Dante's Divine Comedy. The latter is considered one of the greatest works of world literature; her translation of the Divine Comedy is Sayers's magnum opus.
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Alexis I of Russia had problems with the Salt Riot and the Copper Riot but, unlike Putin, no problem at all with Pussy Riot
Featured pictures
Twenty-nine
Featured pictures were promoted this week.
- Alexis of Russia (created by Unknown; nominated by Crisco 1492) Aleksej Michajlovitj Romanov became Tsar Alexis I of Russia at the age of sixteen in 1645. His reign was marked by several revolts, starting with the Salt Riot in 1648, followed by the Copper Riot, and a Cossack revolt in the south, and by wars with Poland and Sweden. The schism of the Russian Orthodox church started during his reign; church authorities demanded that worshipers make the sign of the cross using three fingers instead of two. The Old Believers, insisting on using two fingers, broke away from the church. The state considered Old Believers dangerous- some were arrested and even executed. The tsar's "crowning merit" was apparently in discovering great men and employing them, such as Fyodor Rtishchev, a publicity-shy educationalist and founder of charities. Rtishchev became a target for assassins after meddling with the church's liturgy- maybe he thought they should use one finger instead of two or three. Tsar Alexis' last years were peaceful. He had two wives and sixteen children, of whom three became tsars.
- Funeral proceedings of Alfonso XII of Spain (created by Mr. Campuzano (illustration), Auguste Tilly (engraving); nominated by Adam Cuerden) Alfonso XII died aged 27 from dysentery in 1885. He became king of Spain in 1870, when his mother Queen Isabella II abdicated. They were in Paris at the time, living in exile after a revolution by the army. Alfonso returned to Spain in 1875, propelled there by a group of politicians and army officers who believed that a Bourbon restoration was the way forward out of the wars and unrest that were plaguing the country.
- Twenty-franc Napoleon and Fourty-franc Napoleon (created by the Paris Mint; nominated by Godot13) The Napoléon is a gold coin, minted during the reign of French emperor Napoléon Bonaparte between 1803 and 1815. The nomination shows the 20 and 40 franc coins. Minted in 90% gold, the coins became a widely accepted form of currency for international trade for many years after Napoléon's removal. An issue minted in London in 1815 to pay British troops stationed in northern France caused friction with the newly-restored Bourbon administration- the French regarded them as counterfeits even though they'd been approved by the emigré government previously.
- Vocal score cover of L'éclair (created by Paul Gavarni, restored and nominated by Adam Cuerden) L'éclair by the French Jewish composer Fromental Halévy is a comic opera in three acts. It was published in 1835, and utilises a small company of two tenors and two sopranos in a story of blind love- one of the men has been struck by lightning and is temporarily sightless.
- Vocal score cover of Rigoletto (created by Roberto Focosi, restored and nominated by Adam Cuerden) Rigoletto is an opera by Giuseppe Verdi, telling the tragic story of the hunch-backed court jester Rigoletto, and Rigoletto's beautiful daughter Gilda. The Duke in the history is a bit of a playboy, he seduced a courtier's daughter with Rigoletto's encouragement, who curses them. The curse placed on the Duke and Rigoletto hits Gilda instead, who falls in love with the Duke and later sacrifices her life to save the Duke from the assassins hired by Rigoletto, her father. Rigoletto is mad with sorrow when he realizes that it was Gilda, his beloved daughter that got murdered instead of the Duke. The Duke is the character who is singing the famous " La donna è mobile" aria, loved by the gondoliers in Venice. Roberto Focosi's fine illustration was restored by Adam Cuerden.
- Crew of an M-24 Chaffee Tank in Korea (created by Sgt. Riley (U.S. Army); nominated by TomStar81) The M24 was a light tank, developed during the Second World War by the United States. This photograph was taken during the Korean War, on the Naktong River front. The M24 tanks and their crews were opposed by North Korean T-34-85s, which were better armoured and armed, and they were replaced after sustaining heavy losses by heavier M4 tanks. The M24s were then switched to reconnaissance roles.
- Horse Gram (created by Blacknclick; nominated by Blacknclick) The horse gram ( Macrotyloma uniflorum) is a variety of bean grown mostly in the tropics, generally as cattle fodder. In India, however, especially in the south, it is often cooked or sprouted as an ingredient. The Telugu people serve this bean with boiled rice at weddings and ceremonies. The beans are rich in anti-oxidants such as polyphenols and flavonoids; they also contain lots of protein. Our article presently describes an Indian dish that uses horse gram. Please refrain from standing upwind of us if you try it.
- Lyriothemis acigastra: female and male (created by Jkadavoor; nominated by J Milburn) Lyriothemis acigastra is a rare dragonfly with a secretive nature found in India in Assam, West Bengal and, in 2013, discovered in Kerala. Their diet is made of skippers and moths. This dragonfly is active mainly at dusk and dawn.
- Japanese invasion money of Malaya and Borneo: , one cent, five cents, ten cents, fifty cents, one dollar, five dollars, ten dollars, one-hundred dollars (1944 edition), one-hundred dollars (1945 edition), and thousand dollars (created by Empire of Japan, nominated by Godot13) The Japanese government-issued dollar was a Japanese invasion currency issued by the Japanese government during the occupation of Malaya, North Borneo, Sarawak, and Brunei. The notes were called banana money because of the banana trees that illustrated the banknotes. The banknotes are part of the splendid series of currencies Godot13 is working on.
- Madonna of the Rose Garden (created by Michelino da Besozzo; nominated by Brandmeister) The Madonna of the Rose Garden is a small painting made with tempera on panel from c. 1420–1435, attributed to Michelino da Besozzo , currently in the Castelvecchio Museum of Verona, Italy. The painting shows Mary with the Child in an enchanted secret garden, in the company of angels, flowers, roses and saints, such as St. Catherine of Alexandria, depicted with her attributes the sword and the torture wheel. The two peacocks are a symbol of immortality.
- Westerlund 2 (created by NASA; nominated by Armbrust)The Westerlund 2 cluster is two million years old, and contains of about 3,000 stars, of which at least a dozen are of the hottest, brightest, and most massive stars on the Milky Way, located 20,000 light-years away. We sent one of our editors there to have a look.
- Netherlands Indies gulden coin (created by Java Mint, Netherlands Indies (coin), Heritage Auctions (image); nominated by Crisco 1492) The Netherlands Indies silver Java rupee was used in 1803 together with other Dutch, Spanish, and Asian coins on Java from the 15th century and onwards. The silver Indian rupee was a popular local coin on Java. The Arabic text on it means "dirham", and translates simply as "money". The production of silver and gold rupees continued until around 1807–1808.
- Blangkon (created and nominated by Chris Woodrich) The blangkon in this picture is a traditional Javanese headgear worn by men, made of batik fabric with applied golden decorations. The blangkons are believed to originate, according to the legend, from king Aji Saka, who brought civilization to the island and who saved Java by covering the entire land with a giant blangkon, during a conflict with evil forces. This Ngayogyakarta-style blangkon is usually worn at weddings.
- Zoroastrian Nowruz (created by Ipaat; nominated by Alborzagros) This bas-relief at Persepolis is a Zoroastrian symbolisation of the vernal equinox. The Earth, symbolised by the bull, and the Sun are eternally struggling together. At the vernal equinox their powers are equal.
- Richèl Hogenkamp (created by Kadellar; nominated by Tomer T) Tennis player Richèl Hogenkamp at the Masters in Madrid 2015, Madrid, Spain.
- Witch doctor (created by Lycaon; nominated by Tomer T) A traditional healer or nganga of the Shona people, photographed near the site of Great Zimbabwe. The nganga treats problems of illness and afflictions in his village. Although (according to ethnographer Michael Gelfand) the nganga is neither overly deferred to or feared by his fellow villagers, he acts as the "kingpin of African society" with his influence extending to the selection of tribal chiefs.
- Vocal score cover of Ariadne auf Naxos (created by Unknown artist; restored and nominated by Adam Cuerden) Ariadne auf Naxos is a short opera written by Richard Strauss, a Romantic Austrian composer. The Prologue is set in the home of "the richest man in Vienna"; the evening's after-dinner entertainment is a burlesque followed by a serious opera about Ariadne, presented by a company of saucy comediennes and a company of opera singers respectively. The dinner overruns, and because of the late hour the two companies are instructed to combine their productions, resulting in a combination of "slapstick comedy and consummately beautiful music". Just think- never in the field of human culture has anyone managed to produce a combination of "consummately beautiful comedy and slapstick music".
- Wrocław Główny railway station (created by Pudelek; nominated by Crisco 1492) Wrocław Główny railway station is situated at the junction of several main railway lines in Wrocław, Poland. It was built when the government of the German Empire invested heavily in railway construction in the 19th century, and it was known until 1945 as Breslau Hauptbahnhof ("Breslau Main Station") The image is captured by Pudelek.
- Verdi, Strauss and Halévy
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Reader comments
"One small step..."
Forty-six years ago this week, the
Apollo 11 mission took three men into outer space and two of them,
Neil Armstrong and
Buzz Aldrin, were the first humans to set foot on the surface of
the Moon. It was a great achievement not just in American history, but in human history, marked by Armstrong's memorable phrase "
That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." The photographs of that mission remain among the most recognizable in recent history. Of the photograph of Aldrin taken by Armstrong on the lunar surface taken, Aldrin
tweeted this week: "I have 3 words to describe why this photo Neil took of me is so iconic: Location, location, location." The final photograph is not as famous. It is a photo uploaded by a Wikimedian taken by his grandfather of his mother as a young girl during this historic moment, a great example of how ordinary Wikimedians can contribute to documenting their world and its history.
Reader comments
Tech news in brief
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from July 21. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from July 22. It will be on all Wikipedias from July 23 ( calendar).
- You now see more warnings in the image viewer. They tell you to be careful when using the image, for example if it shows a person. [1]
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on July 21 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
Tech news prepared by
tech ambassadors and posted by
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