User talk:David Fuchs/Archive 44
The GAN Newsletter (November 2012)
PolarscribeHi, I'm having trouble with an editor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Polarscribe who seems to be unable to discuss things without making bold edits with snarky edit summaries. Always amusing to see a newbie cite policies and speak as if they own the place. I believe he is a former administrator but I don't know who and I want to know why he can't use his old account. Can you check user him for me?♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 13:59, 6 November 2012 (UTC) The Signpost: 05 November 2012
J Milburn is a British editor who has been on the site since 2006. He is one of two judges of the WikiCup. Here, he uses an op-ed to explain the way the WikiCup works and to review this year's competition, which ended recently.
The results of most of the national heats for Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) have been published on Commons. A maximum of 10 images have been submitted by all but eight of the 34 participating countries, and the international jury for what is the largest competition of its type in the world is set to announce the global winner in four weeks' time.
Hurricane Sandy was the largest Atlantic hurricane on record and has caused millions of dollars in damage. Naturally, Wikipedia covered it. But was Wikipedia's coverage unbiased?
The Signpost's weekly roundup of topics for discussion on the English Wikipedia.
This week, the Signpost interviewed two editors. The first, PumpkinSky, collaborated with Gerda Arendt in writing the recently featured article on Franz Kafka and won second prize in the Core contest last August. The second, Cwmhiraeth, collaborated with Thompsma in promoting the article Frog, which was featured last week. We asked them about the special challenges faced while writing Core content and things to watch out for.
The Wikimedia Foundation's engineering report for October 2012 was published this week on the Wikimedia Techblog and on the MediaWiki wiki, giving an overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in that month. TimedMediaHandler also went live.
This week, The Signpost sings along with WikiProject Songs which focuses on articles about songs of every generation and genre. The project initially began as a rough outline in October 2002 and was reimagined in March 2004 using its parent WikiProject Albums as a template.
HeyTaki GAR is waiting for over 2 weeks now. --Niemti (talk) 19:50, 12 November 2012 (UTC) The Signpost: 12 November 2012
Last week, media outlets reported a ruling by a German court on the problem of businesses using Wikipedia for marketing purposes. The issue goes beyond the direct management of marketing-related edits by Wikipedians; it involves cross-monitoring and interacting among market competitors themselves on Wikipedia. A company that sells dietary supplements made from frankincense had taken a competitor to court. The recently published judgment by the Higher Regional Court of Munich, in dealing with the German Wikipedia article on frankincense products, was handed down in May and is based on European competition law.
Thirteen articles, six lists, and five images were promoted to 'featured' status last week.
In late September, the Technology report published its findings about (particularly median) code review times. To the 23,900 changesets analysed the first time (the data for which has been updated), the Signpost added data from the 9,000 or so changesets contributed between September 17 and November 9 to a total of 93,000 reviews across 45,000 patchsets. Bots and self-reviews were also discarded, but reviews made by a different user in the form of a superseding patch were retained. Finally, users were categorised by hand according to whether they would be best regarded as staff or volunteers. The new analyses were consistent with the predictions of the previous analysis.
As promised, we're expanding our horizons by featuring projects that cover underrepresented areas of the globe. This week, we headed to WikiProject Brazil which keeps track of articles about the world's largest Portuguese-speaking country. The project has shown spurts of activity and continues to serve as a hub for discussions, despite the project's collaborations, peer reviews, and outreach activities being largely inactive.
Bone Wars etc.Hi David! I wonder—remembering your Bone Wars and Edward Drinker Cope—if you have any advice for me regarding Charles Whitney Gilmore. I have amassed a great deal of research on him (most of which hasn't made it into the article yet), but it's mostly from contemporary sources, and I'm struggling to find any comprehensive modern analysis of his contributions to paleontology. I'm also trying to get my hands on one specific source (Lewis, George Edward. 1946. "Memorial to Charles Whitney Gilmore." Proc. Geol. Soc. Amer. 1945, pp. 235-244) which has thus far eluded me. Have any book suggestions for me, or a connection that might be able to scare up the GSA source? Would appreciate any help you can offer. Thanks. Maralia (talk) 04:28, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
ClarifyWanted to get clarification on your statement discuss via email and approach in a unified way onwiki -- I'm not getting what you mean by "approach" in this context. Does mean discussion phase of the committee or presentation to the community of results (or something else)? NE Ent 16:34, 20 November 2012 (UTC) The Signpost: 19 November 2012
The WMF's Funds Dissemination Committee has published its recommendations for the inaugural round 1 of funding. Requests totalled US$10.4M, nearly all of the FDC's budget for both first and second rounds. The seven-member committee of community volunteers appointed in September advises the WMF board on the distribution of grant funds among applying Wikimedia organizations. The committee, which has a separate operating budget of $276k for salaries and expenses, considered 12 applications for funds, from 11 chapters and from the WMF itself for its non-core activities. The decision-making process included community and FDC staff input after October 1, the closing date for submissions. Taken together, the volunteers decided to endorse an average of 81% of the funding sought—a total of $8.43M, which went to 11 of the 12 applicants. This leaves $2.71M to be distributed in round 2, for which applications are due in little more than three months' time.
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Turtles. The young project started in January 2011 and has accumulated 5 Featured Articles, 3 Featured Lists, and 6 Featured Pictures. The project maintains a combined to-do list and hot articles meter, a popular pages ranking, and a collection of resources for turtle articles. We interviewed Faendalimas and NYMFan69-86.
WMF Executive Director Sue Gardner was forced to clarify this week that proposed structural changes to the Foundation's Engineering and Product Development Department were not a "done deal" and that it was "important that you [particularly affected staff] realise that ... your input is wanted". The reorganisation, announced on November 5 and planned for the middle of next year, will see its two components split off into their own departments.
Seven featured articles, four featured lists and ten featured pictures – including the photograph that spawned the Streisand effect – were promoted this week.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include the question of ticker symbol placement and the notability of various types of creative performer.
RE: my questionThanks for the answer, interesting to hear your view. Mark Arsten (talk) 17:47, 21 November 2012 (UTC) ACE Candidate statementJust as a formality, I recommend adding the mandatory statements regarding alt account disclosure and complying with the identification policy to your statement. While your already an Arb, and have had to do both already, it would be better to have everyone include them in their statements even if they can be inferred. Thanks, Monty845 00:17, 22 November 2012 (UTC) Do you work for Koren Fublishers Jerusalem, or is that a different David Fuchs?62.90.120.177 (talk) 12:42, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
ACE2012 Candidate StatementsHi David Fuchs -- you need to add the following to your candidate statement, per the eligibility requirements: (1) a listing of alternate accounts, or a statement that you have none and (2) a statement of your wilingness to identify with the Foundation or an indication that you have already so identified. Thanks and best regards, Lord Roem (talk) 00:05, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
FAC helpHey David, I was wondering if you could do me a little favor. I've got the Drowned God FAC going pretty well, with two supports, but just got an oppose a couple days ago. I think I've addressed all the issues, but the editor suggested someone else take a look at the prose. Since you've got plenty of FAC experience, and this is a video game article, I thought you might be able to either add a review or just look the article over and post that you've checked the prose. Thanks for any help. —Torchiest talkedits 15:10, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
The Signpost: 26 November 2012
On November 24, a general assembly of Wikimedia Germany (WMDE) voted on the fate of the Wikimedia Toolserver, a central external piece of technical infrastructure supporting the editing communities with volunteer-developed scripts and webpages of various kinds that are assisting in performing mostly menial tasks.
An open-access preprint presents the results from a study attempting to predict early box office revenues from Wikipedia traffic and activity data. The authors – a team of computational social scientists from Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Aalto University and the Central European University – submit that behavioral patterns on Wikipedia can be used for accurate forecasting, matching and in some cases outperforming the use of social media data for predictive modeling. The results, based on a corpus of 312 English Wikipedia articles on movies released in 2010, indicate that the joint editing activity and traffic measures on Wikipedia are strong predictors of box office revenue for highly successful movies.
Six articles, one list, and six images were promoted to 'featured' status this week.
Wikidata, the new "Wikimedia Commons for data" and the first new Wikimedia project since 2006, reached 100,000 entries this week. The project aims to be a single, human- and machine-readable database for common data, spanning across all Wikipedia projects, which will "lead to a higher consistency and quality within Wikipedia articles, as well as increased availability of information in the smaller language editions" while lowering the burden on Wikipedia's volunteer editors—whose numbers have stalled overall, and continue to dwindle on the English Wikipedia.
This week, we uncovered WikiProject Deletion Sorting, Wikipedia's most active project by number of edits to all the project's pages. This special project seeks to increase participation in Articles for Deletion nominations by categorizing the AfD discussions by various topic areas that may draw the attention of editors. The project was started in August 2005 with manual processes that are continued today by a bevy of bots, categories, and transclusions. The project took inspiration from WikiProject Stub Sorting and some historical discussions on deletion reform. As the sheer number of AfDs continues to grow, the project is seeking better tools to manage the deletion sorting process and attract editors to comment on these deletion discussions.
Dispute resolution volunteer survey
Re: TyrantHa ha. Never letting that one go I see? But anyway, Thanks for the review of Tyrant. I'll look at it again and see if its fit for GA status. I also went on Taki's review and suggested that it should be copy edited by the Guild of Copy Editors. GamerPro64 15:44, 29 November 2012 (UTC) Peer reviewHi. Since you gave comments on articles that are currently listed at WP:PR, I was wondering if you could give some helpful comments to Wikipedia:Peer review/Cher/archive1? Thanks, Lordelliott (talk) 21:10, 30 November 2012 (UTC) Question about troublesome userDavid, I wonder if you could put on your Arbcom hat and give me your opinion on the best way to proceed with a troublesome user. The user in question is Paul Bedson (talk · contribs), a prolific editor of articles related to genealogy, history, and archaeology. I first encountered him less than two weeks ago. I'm drafting an RfC/U about him in a sandbox, with help from several other editors. I think that what will happen is that the RfC/U will run, and most editors will agree that Paul's behaviour is unacceptable. Paul will either refuse to accept a voluntary topic ban broad enough to be effective at stopping his negative behaviour, or he will accept it and disregard it at some point in the future. That will result in an Arbcom case, and I think he's likely to be placed under editing restrictions or topic banned there. He's already been warned as part of the pseudoscience case enforcement. My question is whether the RfC/U is the most productive thing to do at this point. I know that Arbcom wants to see attempts at dispute resolution, but it's going to take time, during which Paul is costing a lot of effort from other editors deleting or cleaning his edits. Is there a better way to handle this? More details on request, or you could wade through some of the diffs in the RfC/U draft, if you like, though I'm still tidying those up. Thanks for any advice on this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:08, 1 December 2012 (UTC) A barnstar for you!
The WikiProject: Good Articles Newsletter (December 2012)
Follow up on Paul BedsonIn case you are interested in following it, the RfC/U is now up. I've had almost no involvement with troublesome users over the years I've been on Wikipedia, so I have little background knowledge about the most effective and quickest way to address the problem. Can you enlighten me? What are the options moving forward? Although it's barely a day into the RfC/U, it seems clear what will happen -- there's going to be a strong consensus that Paul's behaviour is inappropriate, and Paul won't agree and won't change. If he slows down or stops his mainspace edits while this is going on, then there's not too much to worry about, but if he continues to edit at his usual speed, he will be creating a good deal of material that will waste the time of editors such as Agricolae, who has spent what must be tens of hours by now in the last month cleaning up Paul's work. If that happens, what can be done? Can he be blocked on an administrator's decision while the RfC/U is still in progress, if he refuses to stop making problematic edits? Would that be a question for ANI? Thanks for any helpful advice. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:25, 4 December 2012 (UTC) The Signpost: 03 December 2012
The global jury of Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM), the world’s largest photo contest, announced its results on 3 December.
Three articles, two lists, and four images were promoted to 'featured' status this week.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
Deployments of MediaWiki 1.21wmf5 cause widespread problems for users across wikis when HTML and CSS updates came temporarily out of sync. On the first wikis targeted for deployment, this was caused by the different cache invalidation rates for HTML (typically one month) and CSS (typically five minutes). The retrospective on the problem highlighted the fact that that the test wiki – the WMF's answer to a production environment that individual developers can no longer practically emulate themselves – actually demonstrated the exact problem that would later manifest itself on production wikis. It went unnoticed.
This week, we went searching for white roses in the lands of WikiProject Yorkshire. The project began in May 2007 as a way to improve articles about the historic English county of Yorkshire and its modern-day administrative divisions and cities. Since then, the project has accumulated 31 Featured Articles, 14 Featured Lists, 91 Good Articles, and a monstrous list of Did You Know entries. Despite all of the effort improving Yorkshire articles, the project has experienced waning participation in the last few years. The project still publishes a newsletter each month, monitors the popularity of and recent changes to its articles, maintains a portal, and collects resources for contributors to use.
Escape From Butcher Bay's PRI know that you have a lot on your plate and you usually forget so I'm just reminding you about Escape From Butcher Bay's PR and the review you were planning to do. GamerPro64 15:20, 6 December 2012 (UTC) FAC Review helpHello, I recently nominated an article, "The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati" for FAC, and its been opposed (probably rightfully so) by editors who insist it needs a more thorough copy-edit. I was directed towards your name, although I'm sure you are rather busy. If you have any time/know anyone who would be willing to help, that would be greatly appreciated! Thank you for reading this.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 21:41, 8 December 2012 (UTC) December 10 is Ada Lovelace's birthday! Not only was she the world's first computer programmer, but also the world's first female open source developer! Come celebrate with Wikimedia District of Columbia at Busboys & Poets for an informal get together! The Washington, DC event will be held on Monday, December 10, 2012 at Busboys & Poets on 5th St NW & K St NW near Mt Vernon Square. The area is easily accessible by the Red Line Chinatown stop and the Yellow Line and Green Line Mt Vernon Square stop, as well as by WMATA buses. Kirill [talk] 14:14, 10 December 2012 (UTC) Re: Star TrekHi Fellow editor, I know there is being WP:Bold, but can we at least have a discussion before you delete my references? In anycase I've added a couple of more references. I've got several more from other sources of you don't think their enough. All the Best SH 07:58, 11 December 2012 (UTC) The Signpost: 10 December 2012
At the time of writing, this year's election has just closed after a two-week voting period. The eight seats were contested by 21 candidates. Of these, 15 have not been arbitrators (Beeblebrox, Count Iblis, Guerillero, Jc37, Keilana, Ks0stm, Kww, NuclearWarfare, Pgallert, RegentsPark, Richwales, Salvio giuliano, Timotheus Canens, Worm That Turned, and YOLO Swag); four candidates are sitting arbitrators (David Fuchs, Elen of the Roads, Jclemens, and Newyorkbrad); and two have previously served on the committee (Carcharoth and Coren). Four Wikimedia stewards from outside the English Wikipedia stepped forward as election scrutineers: Pundit, from the Polish Wikipedia; Teles, from the Portuguese Wikipedia; Quentinv57, from the French Wikipedia; and Mardetanha, from the Persian Wikipedia. The scrutineers' task is to ensure that the election is free of multiple votes from the same person, to tally the results, and to announce them. The full results are expected to be released within the next few days and will be reported in next week's edition of the Signpost.
Eight articles, four images, six lists, and one topic were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia this week.
The Visual Editor project – an attempt to create the first WMF-deployable WYSIWYG editor – will go live on its first Wikipedias imminently following nearly six months of testing on MediaWiki.org. A full explanatory blog post accompanied the news, explaining the project and its setup. Once a user has opted-in, the editor can handle basic formatting, headings and lists, while safely ignoring elements it is yet to understand, including references, categories, templates, tables and images. At the last count, approximately 2% of pages would break in some way if a user tried the Visual Editor on them; it is unclear whether any specific protection will be put in place beyond relying on editors to spot problems.
In celebration of Human Rights Day, we checked out WikiProject Human Rights. Started in February 2006, the project has grown to include over 3,000 articles, including 12 Featured Articles, 3 Featured Lists, 66 Good Articles, a large collection of Did You Know entries, and a few mentions "in the news". The project monitors listings of popular pages and cleanup tags. We interviewed Khazar2, Cirt, and Boud.
Wikimedia DC Holiday Party and Wiki Loves Monuments ExhibitionPlease join Wikimedia DC and four other local media nonprofits—the National Press Club's Young Members Committee, 100Reporters, IRE and the Fund for Investigative Journalism—in winding down another year with a night of well-mannered frivolity. The festivities will take place on Friday evening from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM in the Zenger Room on the 13th Floor of the National Press Club, located on 529 14th Street NW, near Metro Center. There will be meat and vegetarian appetizers as well as a cash bar with specially reduced drink prices all night long. In addition, we will be exhibiting the finalists of the Wiki Loves Monuments photo contest at the event. Hope to see you there! Kirill [talk] 04:38, 13 December 2012 (UTC) An FAC video game copy-editThis article has received several copy-edits since September, but a user indicates that there are still prose issues; her issue is that there are things that don't make sense for non-gamers. A couple of editors have tried to fix these problems since she made point about them, but she indicates there are still issues. She referenced you in her last post on the FAC. The article is God of War (video game). Much appreciated if you could look over the article and fix these issues. --JDC808 ♫ 06:13, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
CongratulationsRather you than me :) --Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:28, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
You have my congratulations per elen (and my empathy per Coren : ) - jc37 22:16, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
Just pinging you to remind you of the review as you requested. Haven't heard anything for a few days. --Teancum (talk) 14:50, 19 December 2012 (UTC) The Signpost: 17 December 2012
Seven days after the close of voting, the results of the recent Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) elections have been announced by two of the four stewards overseeing the election, Mardetanha and Pundit. Of the 21 candidates, 13 managed to gain positive support-to-oppose ratios, and the top eight will be appointed to two-year terms on the committee by Jimbo Wales, exercising one of his traditional responsibilities.
In the past year, we've tried to expand our horizons by looking at how WikiProjects work in other languages of Wikipedia. Following in the footsteps of our previously interviewed Czech and French projects, we visited the German Wikipedia to explore WikiProjekt Computerspiel (WikiProject Computer Games). The project dates back to November 2004 and has become the back-end of the Computer Games Portal, which covers all video games regardless of platform. Editors writing about computer games at the German Wikipedia deal with unique cultural and legal challenges, ranging from a lack of fair use precedents to the limited availability of games deemed harmful for youths to strong standards for the inclusion of material on the German Wikipedia.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include ...
This week's big story on the English Wikipedia is obviously the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting (which, by the time you read this, may be renamed 2012 Connecticut school shooting). Quickly created and nominated for deletion not once but twice, and both times speedily kept, the article saw the expected flurry of edits (a look at the history suggests an average of at least one a minute over the first day and a half) and more than half a million page views on the first full day.
Four articles, three lists, and five images were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia this week, including a picture of a three-week old donkey (also known as an 'ass').
MediaWiki users (including Wikimedians) can now organise themselves into groups, receiving recognition and support-in-kind from the Wikimedia Foundation. The project, backed by new Wikimedia technical contributor coordinator Quim Gil, has seen five proposals lodged in its first week of operation. The idea of MediaWiki groups mimics that of Wikimedia User Groups.
SWHi David, First, I don't know enough about either Schumin or the situation to offer anything constructive beyond what others have posted; so perhaps I'm off base on this. I noticed some wording in your motion proposal though ...
That left me with the impression that you (the Arbs) would be leaving the admin. bits in tact for a year. In reading what many of the other arbs had posted, I wasn't sure if that was your intent. Not that it matters to me in the least, It's just that I was a bit puzzled about waiting a year to "desysop"; and thought maybe there was a word or two missing from the motion that you may have intended to include. Either way - I wish you and yours a very happy holiday season. Best. — Ched : ? 15:01, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
Motion regarding David FuchsInsomuch as that David Fuchs is a decent guy, and now stuck (again) with ArbCom (thankyouverymuch) I move that Fuchs be wished a very happy holiday season.
Happy Festivus
Merry Christmas!
Spread the cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas2}} to their talk page with a friendly message. Hello David Fuchs! Wishing you a very Happy Merry Christmas :) TheGeneralUser (talk) 13:24, 25 December 2012 (UTC) Happy holidays Some Christmas traditions are very difficult to explain. Kind of like Wikipedia policies. Best, Risker (talk) 15:30, 25 December 2012 (UTC) The Signpost: 24 December 2012As part of its new focus on core responsibilities, the Wikimedia Foundation is reforming its grant schemes so that they are more accessible to individual volunteers. The community is invited to look at proposals for a new scheme—for now called Individual engagement grants (IEGs)—which is due to kick off on January 15. On Meta, the community is once again debating the two new offline participation models—user groups (open membership groups designed to be easy to form) and thematic organizations (incorporated non-profits representing the Wikimedia movement and supporting work on a specific theme within or across countries). In a consultation process on Meta that will last until January 15, the community will be discussing WMF proposals for a new guideline on conflicts of interests concerning Wikimedia resources. The draft covers COI issues for both volunteers and organizations across the movement.
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject A Song of Ice and Fire, which focuses on the eponymous series of high fantasy literature, the television series Game of Thrones, and related works by George R. R. Martin. The project was started in July 2006 and has grown to include 11 Good Articles maintained by a small yet enthusiastic band of editors.
Seven articles and two lists were promoted to 'featured' status this week, including List of battlecruisers. The article covers all of the battlecruisers—which were a type of warship similar in size to a battleship but with several defining characteristics—ever planned or constructed. The last British battlecruiser built, HMS Hood, is pictured at right.
Efforts were stepped up this week to sow a feeling of trust between the major parties with an interest in the future of the Toolserver. The tool- and bot-hosting server – more accurately servers – are currently operated by German chapter, Wikimedia Germany, with assistance from the Foundation and numerous volunteers, including long-time system administrator Daniel Baur (more commonly known by his pseudonym DaB). However, those parties have more recently failed to see eye-to-eye on the trajectory for the Toolserver, which is scheduled to be replaced by Wikimedia Labs in late 2013, with increasing concern about the tone of discussions.
Disambiguation link notification for December 27Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page The Escapist (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject. It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 12:01, 27 December 2012 (UTC) The Signpost: 31 December 2012
In the impersonal, detached Colosseum that is Wikipedia, people find it much easier to put their thumbs down. As such, many people active in the Wikimedia movement have witnessed a precipitous decline in civil discourse. This is far from a new trend, yet many people would agree that it all seemed somehow worse in 2012.
A recent, poorly researched and poorly written story in the Register highlighted the perceived "cash rich" status of the Wikimedia movement. ... The Telegraph and Daily Dot, among others, have alleged that there are multiple links between the WMF, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, and Kazakhstan's government, which is, for all intents and purposes, a one-party non-democratic state.
On 27 December the Wikimedia Foundation announced the conclusion of their ninth annual fundraiser, which attracted more than 1.2 million donors. The appeal reached its goal of US$25 million, even though fundraising banners ran for only nine days.
In the first of two features, the Signpost this week looks back on 2012, a year when developers finally made inroads into three issues that had been put off for far too long (the need for editors to learn wiki-markup, the lack of a proper template language and the centralisation of data) but left all three projects far from finished.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include ...
Brion Vibber has been a Wikipedia editor for nearly 11 years and was the first person officially hired to work for the Wikimedia Foundation. He was instrumental in early development of the MediaWiki software and is now the lead software architect for the foundation's mobile development team.
At the beginning of the year, we began a series of interviews with editors who have worked hard to combat systemic bias through the creation of featured content; although we haven't seen six installments yet, we've also had some delightful interviews with people who write articles on some of our most core topics. Now, as we close the year, I would like to present some of my own musings on the state of featured content—especially as it pertains to systemic bias and core topics.
This week, we're celebrating the New Year from Times Square by interviewing WikiProject New York City. Since December 2004, WikiProject NYC has had the difficult task of maintaining articles about the largest city in the United States, many of which are also among the the most viewed articles on Wikipedia. The project is home to 22 Featured Articles, 7 Featured Lists, 32 pieces of Featured Media, and a lengthy list of Did You Know? entries.
Northeastern University researcher Brian Keegan analyzed the gathering of hundreds of Wikipedians to cover the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. ... A First Monday article reviews several aspects of the Wikipedia participation in the 18 January 2012, protests against SOPA and PIPA legislation in the USA. The paper focuses on the question of legitimacy, looking at how the Wikipedia community arrived at the decision to participate in those protests.
The WikiProject: Good Articles Newsletter (January 2013)
This newsletter was delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 14:35, 3 January 2013 (UTC) I've tried to address everything you mentioned. I have one last comment at the bottom, but other than that I think it's done. Thanks! --Teancum (talk) 14:48, 3 January 2013 (UTC) Happy New Year!
Halo navboxThe link is duplicated by the series link at the top of the navbox; in addition, it introduces an anchor, both of which NAV suggests we avoid. --Izno (talk) 15:37, 4 January 2013 (UTC) Disambiguation link notification for January 6Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Skybox (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject. It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 11:45, 6 January 2013 (UTC) The WikiProject Video Games Newsletter (4th Quarter 2012) The WikiProject Video Games Newsletter Project At a Glance
Content
Project Navigation This newsletter was delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 03:08, 9 January 2013 (UTC) The Signpost: 07 January 2013Meta is the wiki that has coordinated a wide range of cross-project Wikimedia activities, such as the activities of stewards, the archiving of chapter reports, and WMF trustee elections. The project has long been an out-of-the-way corner for technocratic working groups, unaccountable mandarins, and in-house bureaucratic proceedings. Largely ignored by the editing communities of projects such as Wikipedia and organizations that serve them, Meta has evolved into a huge and relatively disorganized repository, where the few archivists running it also happen to be the main authors of some of its key documents. While Meta is well-designed for supporting the librarians and mandarins who stride along its corridors, visitors tend to find the site impenetrable—or so many people have argued over the past decade. This impenetrability runs counter to Meta's increasingly central role in the Wikimedia movement.
The dawning of a new year offers both a fresh slate and an opportunity to revisit our previous adventures. 2012 marked the fifth anniversary of the WikiProject Report and was the column's most productive year with 52 articles published. In addition to sharing the experiences of Wikipedia's many active projects, we expanded our scope to highlight unique projects from other languages of Wikipedia, and tracked down all of the former editors-in-chief of the Signpost for an introspective interview ... While last year's "Summer Sports Series" may have drawn yawns from some readers, a special report on "Neglected Geography" elicited more comments than any previous issue of the Report. Following in the footsteps of our past three recaps, we'll spend this week looking back at the trials and tribulations of the WikiProjects we encountered in 2012. Where are they now?
The past 12 months have seen a multitude of issues and events in the Wikimedia foundation, the movement at large, and the English Wikipedia. The movement, now in its second decade, is growing apace in its international reach, cultural and linguistic diversity, technical development, and financial complexity; and many factors have combined to produce what has in many ways been the biggest, most dynamic year in the movement's history. Looking back at 2012, we faced a difficult task in doing justice to all of the notable events in a single article; so the Signpost has selected just a few examples from outside the anglosphere, from the English Wikipedia, and from the Wikimedia Foundation, rather than attempting to cover every detail that happened.
Over the past year, 963 pieces of featured content were promoted. The most active of the featured content programs was featured article candidates (FAC), which promoted an average of 31 articles a month. This was followed by featured picture candidates (FPC; 28 a month). Coming in third was featured list candidates (FLC; 20 a month). Featured topic and featured portal candidates remained sluggish, each promoting fewer than 20 items over the year.
Following on from last week's reflections on 2012, this week the Technology report looks ahead to 2013, a year that will almost certainly be dominated by the juggernauts of Wikidata, Lua and the Visual Editor.
TalkbackHi David. I posted a couple of lengthy responses to you at User_talk:Hammersoft#Re:_User_talk:Doncram. You can respond if you like, but it's not necessary. I am just hoping you'll read my comments. Regards, --Hammersoft (talk) 15:17, 10 January 2013 (UTC) Halo 4 retentionWell David. It seems Halo 4 is approaching the end of its grace period (2013-02-06) so hopefully this and Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary can finally be placed on the topic. That and the soundtrack. GamerPro64 15:52, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
Halo 4 and OST
The1337gamer (talk) 14:45, 15 January 2013 (UTC) Video game soundtracksQuick question: how much information do we generally include for video game soundtracks? Check here; about a month ago I got a copy of this soundtrack and scoured the liner notes for information; I'm used to doing that for actual album articles, but now I'm thinking it's too excessive for a subsection in a video game article. Would removing just the personnel section be better? Thanks. —Torchiest talkedits 18:44, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
The Signpost: 14 January 2013
After six years without creating a new class of content projects, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) has finally expanded into a new area: travel. Wikivoyage was formally launched—though without a traditional ship's christening—on 15 January, having started as a beta trial on 10 November. Wikivoyage has been taken under the WMF's umbrella on the argument that information resources that help with travel are educational and therefore within the scope of the foundation's mission.g
On January 16, voting for the first round of the 2012 Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year contest will begin. Wikimedia editors with 75 edits or one project are eligible to vote to select their favorite image featured in 2012. ... On January 15, the foundation launched its latest grant scheme, called Individual Engagement Grants (IEG).
This week, we set off for the final frontier with WikiProject Astronomy. The project was started in August 2006 using the now-defunct WikiProject Space as inspiration. WikiProject Astronomy is home to 101 pieces of Featured material and 148 Good Articles maintained by a band of 186 members. The project maintains a portal, works on an assortment of vital astronomy articles, and provides resources for editors adding or requesting astronomy images.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
Comforting those grieving after the loss of a loved one is an impossible task. How then, can an entire community be comforted? The Internet struggled to answer that question this week after the suicide of Aaron Swartz, a celebrated free-culture activist, programmer, and Wikipedian at the age of 26.
Continuing our recap of the featured content promoted in 2012, this week the Signpost interviewed three editors, asking them about featured articles which stuck out in their minds. Two, Ian Rose and Graham Colm, are current featured article candidates (FAC) delegates, while Brian Boulton is an active featured article writer and reviewer.
The opening of the Doncram case marks the end of almost 6 months without any open cases, the longest in the history of the Committee.
The Wikidata client extension was successfully deployed to the Hungarian Wikipedia on 14 January, its team reports. The interwiki language links can now come from wikidata.org, though "manual" interwiki links remain functional, overriding those from the central repository.
Talkback Message added 14:40, 17 January 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template. Thanks for letting me know. Dougweller (talk) 14:40, 17 January 2013 (UTC) TalkbackMessage added 16:36, 17 January 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template. I think you've got the times backwards. Dougweller (talk) 16:36, 17 January 2013 (UTC) Thank you!Thank you for taking the time to peer review Circus this week. I will be sure to incorporate those suggestions into the article! Regards, 68DANNY2 (talk) 21:28, 17 January 2013 (UTC) Halo 4 SpecializationsI noticed that you are a regular contributor to Halo 4 and would appreciate any feedback you might have on a recent discussion. Thanks! --GoneIn60 (talk) 20:42, 21 January 2013 (UTC) The Signpost: 21 January 2013
The English Wikipedia's requests for adminship (RfA) process has entered another cycle of proposed reforms. Over the last three weeks, various proposals, ranging from as large as a transition to a representative democracy to as small as a required edit count and service length, have been debated on the RfA talk page. The total number of new administrators for 2012 was just 28, barely more than half of 2011's total and less than a quarter of 2009's total. The total number of unsuccessful RfAs has fallen as well. These declining numbers, which were described in what would now be considered a successful year (2010) as an emerging "wikigeneration gulf", have been coupled with a sharp decline in the number of active administrators since February 2008 (1,021), reaching a low of 653 in November 2012.
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Linguistics. Started in January 2004, the project has grown to include 7 Featured Articles, 4 Featured Lists, 2 A-class Articles, and 15 Good Articles maintained by 43 members. The project's members keep an eye on several watchlists, maintain the linguistics category, and continue to build a collection of Did You Know? entries. The project is home to six task forces and works with WikiProject Languages and WikiProject Writing Systems.
This week, the Signpost's featured content section continues its recap of 2012 by looking at featured topics. We interviewed Grapple X and GamerPro64, who are delegates at the featured topic candidates.
The opening of the Doncram case marks the end of almost 6 months without any open cases, the longest in the history of the Committee.
On 22 January, WMF staff and contractors switched incoming, non-cached requests (including edits) to the Foundation's newer data centre in Ashburn, Virginia, making it responsible for handling almost all regular traffic. For the first time since 2004, virtually no traffic will be handled by the WMF's other facility in Tampa, Florida.
Hammersmith & City lineHi David Fuchs, you kindly said you would peer review Hammersmith & City line at Wikipedia:Peer review/Hammersmith & City line/archive1, and said to ping you here if you hadn't posted anything in two days. Thanks Edgepedia (talk) 12:32, 25 January 2013 (UTC) Question about personal attacksHey David, I discovered on the Dota 2 talk page that there is an entire section, (with my name constituting the header), where an anonymous editor has a tirade against me, claiming that I have a feverish agenda and that I need to be dealt with, in whatever the hell terms that means. He's received some backlash from several editors and more importantly, he received a one hell of a backlash from me when I found out nearly two weeks later. I have an issue with the fact that there is a section deriding my good name on Wikipedia. Since it is nothing more than an ignorant personal attack, would it be constitutional for said section to be removed/renamed, since it has no merit? DarthBotto talk•cont 06:13, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
Repeat vandalismHi David. I'm been subject to repeat vandalism by IP Address 24.228.37.107 and user KLetters at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ari_Teman Latest Example: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ari_Teman&diff=prev&oldid=535248797 replacing comedian with "narcissist" Previous example is replacing entire contents of the article. Can you release the IP address of KLetters (we know the identity of the individual already and now will ascertain if they or an associate are repeat offenders with this recent attack). Thank you, Ari AriTeman (talk) 03:19, 29 January 2013 (UTC) The Signpost: 28 January 2013
On New Year's Day, the Daily Dot reported that a "massive Wikipedia hoax" had been exposed after more than five years. The article on the Bicholim conflict had been listed as a "Good Article" for the past half-decade, yet turned out to be an ingenious hoax. Created in July 2007 by User:A-b-a-a-a-a-a-a-b-a, the meticulously detailed piece was approved as a GA in October 2007. A subsequent submission for FA was unsuccessful, but failed to discover that the article's key sources were made up. While the User:A-b-a-a-a-a-a-a-b-a account then stopped editing, the hoax remained listed as a Good Article for five years, receiving in the region of 150 to 250 page views a month in 2012. It was finally nominated for deletion on 29 December 2012 by ShelfSkewed—who had discovered the hoax while doing work on Category:Articles with invalid ISBNs—and deleted the same day.
A special issue of the American Behavioral Scientist is devoted to "open collaboration".
When we challenged the masters of WikiProject Chess to an interview, Sjakkalle answered our call. WikiProject Chess dates back to December 2003 and has grown to include 4 Featured Articles and 15 Good Articles maintained by over 100 members. The project typically operates independently of other WikiProjects, although the project would theoretically be a child of WikiProject Board and Table Games (interviewed in 2011). WikiProject Chess provides a collection of resources, seeks missing photographs of chess players, and helps determine ways that Wikipedia's coverage of chess can be expanded.
New discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
To many Wikimedians, the Khan Academy would seem like a close cousin: the academy is a non-profit educational website and a development of the massive open online course concept that has delivered over 227 million lessons in 22 different languages. Its mission is to give "a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere." This complements Wikipedia's stated goal to "imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge", then go and create that world. It should come as no surprise, then, that the highly successful GLAM-Wiki (galleries, libraries, archives, museums) initiative has partnered with the Khan Academy's Smarthistory project to further both its and Wikipedia's goals.
This week, the Signpost featured content section continues its recap of 2012 by looking at featured lists. We interviewed FLC directors Giants2008 and The Rambling Man as well as active reviewer and writer PresN.
The Doncram case has continued into its third week.
As reported in last week's "Technology Report", the WMF's data centre in Ashburn, Virginia took over responsibility for almost all of the remaining functions that had previously been handled by their old facility in Tampa, Florida on 22 January. The Signpost reported then that few problems had arisen since handover. Unfortunately that was not to remain the case, with reports of caching problems (which typically only affect anonymous users) starting to come in.
Hey! I have nominated Gravity Bone for FA and I'd like to know if you would be able to review it. Thanks! — ΛΧΣ21 18:43, 3 February 2013 (UTC) Halo Topic coming soonGetting close to the end of the grace period. How's the progress coming along? GamerPro64 16:30, 4 February 2013 (UTC) Disambiguation link notification for February 5Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited The Mummy (1999 film), you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Scarab (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject. It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 00:22, 5 February 2013 (UTC) The Signpost: 04 February 2013
On February 12, 2012, news of Whitney Houston's death brought 425 hits per second to her Wikipedia article, the highest peak traffic on any article since at least January 2010. It is broadly known that Wikipedia is the sixth most popular website on the Internet, but the English Wikipedia now has over 4 million articles and 29 million total pages. Much less attention has been given to traffic patterns and trends in content viewed.
Article feedback, at least through talk pages, has been a part of Wikipedia since its inception in 2001. The use of these pages, though, has typically been limited to experienced editors who know how to use them.
This week, we took a trip to WikiProject Norway. Started in February 2005, WikiProject Norway has become the home for almost 34,000 articles about the world's best place to live, including 16 Featured Articles, 19 Featured Lists, and nearly 250 Good Articles. The project works on a to do list, maintains a categorization system, watches article alerts, and serves as a discussion forum.
This week, the Signpost's featured content section continues its recap of 2012 by looking at featured portals, a small yet active part of the project. We interviewed FPOC directors Cirt and OhanaUnited.
On 30 January 2013, Kevin Morris in the Daily Dot summarised the bitter debates in Wikipedia around capitalisation or non-capitalisation of the word "into" in the title of the upcoming Star Trek film, Star Trek Into Darkness.
Following the deployment of the Wikidata client to the Hungarian Wikipedia last month, the client was also deployed to the Italian and Hebrew Wikipedias on Wednesday. The next target for the client, which automatically provides phase 1 functionality, is the English Wikipedia, with a deployment date of 11 February already set.
Star Trek editsWell that was mean - these are chances for people to see these films on the big screen, what a waste of my time! Minor events - well whatever. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mark Egerton (talk • contribs) 17:41, 7 February 2013 (UTC) WikiProject Good Articles Newsletter - February 2013
The Signpost: 11 February 2013Wikipedia has a long, daresay storied history with hoaxes; our internal list documents 198 of the largest ones we have caught as of 4 January 2013. Why?
Six articles, one list, and fourteen pictures were promoted to "featured" states this week on the English Wikipedia.
This week, we got the details on WikiProject Infoboxes.
Foreign Policy has published a report on editing of the Wikipedia articles on the Senkaku Islands and Senkaku Islands dispute. The uninhabited islands are under the control of Japan, but China and Taiwan are asserting rival territorial claims. Tensions have risen of late—and not just in the waters surrounding the actual islands.
Wikimedia UK, the non-profit organization devoted to furthering the goals of the Wikimedia movement in the United Kingdom, has published the findings of a governance review conducted by Compass Partnership.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
The WMF's engineering report for January was published this week.
The Signpost: 18 February 2013
This week, we put our life in the hands of WikiProject Airlines. Starting in July 2005, the project has improved articles relating to airline companies, alliances, destination lists, and travel benefit programs. WikiProject Airlines has accumulated over 4,000 pages, including 4 Featured Articles and 26 Good Articles.
As of time of writing, twenty wikis (including the English, French and Hungarian Wikipedias) are in the process of getting access to the Lua scripting language, an optional substitute for the clunky template code that exists at present.
On February 15, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) declared 'victory' in its counter-lawsuit against Internet Brands (IB), the owner of Wikitravel and the operator of several online media, community, and e-commerce sites in vertical markets. The lawsuit clears the last remaining hurdles for the WMF's new travel guide project, Wikivoyage.
Sue Gardner's visit to Australia sparked a number of interviews in the Australian press. An interview published in the Daily Telegraph on 12 February 2013, titled "Data plans 'unnerving': Wikipedia boss", saw Gardner comment on Australian plans to store personal internet and telephone data. The planned measure, intended to assist crime prevention, would involve internet service providers and mobile phone firms storing customer usage data for up to two years.
Two articles, nine lists, and thirteen pictures were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia this week.
DC happy hour on Thursday, February 28!Please join Wikimedia DC for Happy Hour at the Capitol City Brewery at Metro Center on Thursday, February 28 at 6 p.m. All Wikipedia/Wikimedia and free knowledge/culture enthusiasts, regardless of editing experience, are welcome to attend! All ages welcome! For more information and to sign up, see Wikipedia:Meetup/DC 34. Hope to see you there! Harej (talk) 02:24, 24 February 2013 (UTC) The FAR is relisted, so join in discussion. Meanwhile, do not hesitate to fix the article Jurassic Park. --George Ho (talk) 00:06, 25 February 2013 (UTC) Add Polygon to VGReviewsHi, you recently participated in this discussion about additions to the VGReviews template. Do you mind clarifying your opinion on the inclusion of Polygon (website) in the template? Polygon has been around for over a year now; they were provisionally called "Vox Games" when they were still a subsection of parent website The Verge (owned by Vox Media). Polygon was only separated into its own website four months ago but the editorial staff has been together for much longer, hence the confusion in the discussion about its "established-ness". Axem Titanium (talk) 05:57, 28 February 2013 (UTC) The Signpost: 25 February 2013On 13 February 2013, PR Report, the German sister publication of PR Week, published an article announcing that PR agency Fleishman-Hillard was offering a new analysis tool enabling companies to assess their articles in the German-language Wikipedia: the Wikipedia Corporate Index (WCI).
"Wikipedia and Encyclopedic Production" by Jeff Loveland (a historian of encyclopedias) and Joseph Reagle situates Wikipedia within the context of encyclopedic production historically, arguing that the features that many claim to be unique about Wikipedia actually have roots in encyclopedias of the past.
The Wikimedia Commons 2012 Picture of the Year contest has ended, with the winner being Pair of Merops apiaster feeding, taken by Pierre Dalous. The picture shows a pair of European Bee-eaters in a mating ritual—the male bird (right) has tossed the wasp into the air, and he will eventually offer it to the female (left).
Current discussions include...
Six articles, three lists, and twelve images were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this month.
How can we measure the challenges facing a project or determine a WikiProject's productivity? Several prominent projects have been doing it for years: WikiWork.
Wikimedia Germany (WMDE) this week committed itself to funding the Wikidata development team, ending fears that phase three would be abandoned.
Invitation to a discussion: Wikipedia and legislative dataHi David Fuchs, since you are interested in meetups in DC, I'd like to invite you to attend the Cato Institute's "Wikipedia and Legislative Data" events on March 14. (There's also an all day workshop on March 15; let me know if you are interested, we may be able to add more people.) There will be an introduction to Wikipedia and open edit-a-thon in the afternoon, and a Sunshine Week Reception in the evening. I hope you can make it!
Hope to see you there! -Pete (talk) 19:04, 1 March 2013 (UTC) DC meetup & dinner on Saturday, March 9!Please join Wikimedia DC for a social meetup and dinner at Guapo's at Tenleytown-AU on Saturday, March 9 at 5 PM All Wikipedia/Wikimedia and free knowledge/culture enthusiasts, regardless of editing experience, are welcome to attend! All ages welcome! For more information and to sign up, please see Wikipedia:Meetup/DC 35. Hope to see you there! Kirill [talk] 13:59, 4 March 2013 (UTC) RequestA small request - as drafting arb on the sexology case you said on the evidence talkpage you would be blanking the relevant pages etc, as well as blanking/deleting the 'evidence' pages that Jokestress is linking to in her user section. Can I make a request that its more than blanked/deleted? Ideally put beyond her ability to view it (oversight/revdel whatever). Explanation: I noticed that one of the evidence sections quoted me at an ANI posting, which in restrospect I wish I hadnt made. Not because I dont agree with what I said, but because at that point I didnt have the full picture of her off-wiki actions towards people she considers opponents. I would rather not ask the user who quoted me to remove the link to my comments as I feel it probably does display exactly what they are talking about, but I would also rather not have that sort of thing hanging around after the case, even in blanked form, for someone willing to do/take that sort of extreme action. Regards. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:39, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
UnblockDavid--will you please unblock MZMcBride? I don't understand the block in the first place: if providing the link to that website which shall not be named was the wrong thing to do symbolically, because every fool knows how to add ".com" to a string of letters, then a block could have been symbolic as well. MZMcBride is not a troll, as you well know. Thank you. Drmies (talk) 15:41, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
MZMMcBrideHi David. Would you mind explaining your block on the editor's talk page? Though not explicitly required, it is generally a good idea to clearly explain why a block is being made (see WP:EXPLAINBLOCK). Otherwise, an admin reviewing an unblock notice would be unable to review the unblock request adequately. Thanks. --regentspark (comment) 17:14, 6 March 2013 (UTC) NYU-PolyHi, I just saw that an editor removed a huge chunk of well-sourced materials from List of NYU Polytechnic Institute people: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_NYU_Polytechnic_Institute_people&diff=542481996&oldid=542479531 Thanks,--Celtsmote (talk) 01:26, 7 March 2013 (UTC) The Signpost: 04 March 2013Recently I was having a casual conversation with a friend, and he mentioned that he spent too many hours a day playing video games. I responded with a comment that I, too, spent way too much time on an activity of my own – Wikipedia. In an attempt to reply with a relevant remark, he offered something along the lines of: "So have you ever written anything?" After a second, I quickly answered yes, but I was still in shock over his question. It seemed to be rooted in a belief on his part that using Wikipedia meant just reading the articles, and that editing was something that someone, hypothetically, might do, but not really more likely than randomly counting to 7,744.
"WP:OUTING", the normally little-noticed policy corner of the English Wikipedia that governs the release of editors' personal information, has suddenly been brought to wider attention after long-term contributor and featured article writer Cla68 was indefinitely blocked last week. This snowballed into several other blocks, a desysopping by ArbCom, and a request for arbitration.
Three articles, six lists, and three pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week, including the article on "Laura Secord", who was a Canadian heroine of the War of 1812 best known for warning the British of an impending American attack.
This week, we tuned to WikiProject Television Stations, a project that dates back to March 2004. WikiProject Television Stations primarily focuses on local stations, national networks, television markets, and other topics related to television channels in North America, the Caribbean, and some Pacific countries. The project has a fair bit of work ahead of them with over 4,000 unassessed articles and only one Good Article out of 626 assessed articles, giving the project a relative WikiWork rating of 5.262.
ARCBB requestthanks for your comment, that's what Dave S convinced me of as well. If in your read you missed my proposal for how to PREVENT this problem in the future (search for bold text "proposal"), please take another look. I don't know how to push the idea, but IPCC AR5 is due out next year. We should fix this now before the real fun starts up again. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:09, 13 March 2013 (UTC) The Signpost: 11 March 2013
I am pleased to announce that the Signpost and Wikizine have reached an in-principle agreement that will see Wikizine published as a special Signpost section at the beginning of each month.
During March, three of the Wikimedia Foundation's grantmaking schemes on Meta will reach important crossroads, which will shape how both the editing communities and Wikimedia institutions handle the distribution of donors' money across the movement.
Twelve articles, five lists, and eight pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week, including an image of the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, a front-engine, 2-seat luxury grand tourer automobile developed by Mercedes-AMG.
There are three open cases, and a final decision has been given in the Doncram case.
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court Cases.
The WMF has aborted a plan to deploy version 5 of the Article Feedback tool (AFTv5) rolled out to all English Wikipedia articles.
Secret InformersWikipedia should not be a Gestapo type state [1]. It should not operate on the word of secret informers and in-camera trials. Who was the informer on User:George Ponderevo or was s/he invented by the Arbcom) and please supply diffs for the supposed serious crimes. Then please tell the project how each Arb voted - or are the Arbs ashamed of their actions? Giano 13:49, 14 March 2013 (UTC) Good Article Nominations Request For Comment
HeyGood luck on your Halo nom! Just wanted to give you the one week bump you requested. Whenever is good for you, let me know. :) Judgesurreal777 (talk) 22:52, 20 March 2013 (UTC) You are invited to a Women in the Arts Meetup & Edit-a-thon on Friday, March 29In honor of Women's History Month, the Smithsonian and the National Museum of Women in the Arts are teaming up to organize a Women in the Arts Meetup & Edit-a-thon on Friday, March 29, 2013 from 10:00am - 5:00pm. The event is focused on encouraging women editors while improving Wikipedia entries about women artists and art world figures. This event is free of charge, but participation is limited to 20 volunteers, so RSVP today! Sarasays (talk) 23:15, 20 March 2013 (UTC) TalkbackYou can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template. Neelix (talk) 13:14, 21 March 2013 (UTC) The Signpost: 18 March 2013
Just two months into his second term as an arbitrator on the English Wikipedia, Coren resigned from the Committee with a blistering attack on his fellow arbitrators. At the heart of a strongly worded statement, posted both on his talk page and the arbitration notice board, was the claim that ArbCom has become politicised to the extent that "it can no longer do the job it was ostensibly elected for".
This week, we composed a tribute to WikiProject Composers. The project was created during the final hours of 2004 and finalized in early January 2005. It has grown to encompass over 8,000 pages, including 26 Featured Articles and 23 Good Articles. WikiProject Composers faces a difficult workload, with a relative WikiWork rating of 5.45.
Ask librarians what they think about Wikipedia and you might get some interesting answers. Some will throw up their hands about the laziness of the Google generation and their overdependence on Wikipedia. Some see it as the "competition". And some will tell you it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Nine articles, seven lists, eleven images, and one topic were promoted to "featured status" this week on the English Wikipedia.
On Thursday, arbitrator Coren resigned, following closely on the heels of Hersfold's resignation on Wednesday. There are two open cases. A final decision has been given in the Richard case.
The WMF's engineering report for January was published this week, giving an overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in that month.
Motion to close RFC/UYou have previously commented on Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Niemti. As an outside editor, I have moved that this RFC/U be closed. If you wish to comment on the Motion to close, please do so here. Fladrif (talk) 14:42, 28 March 2013 (UTC) The Signpost: 25 March 2013
Our travels have brought us to Pittsburgh, the American city known for steelworks and bridges.
Seven articles, one list, six pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
This case, brought by Mark Arsten, was opened over a dispute over transgenderism topics that began off-wiki. The evidence phase was scheduled to close March 7, 2013, with a proposed decision due to be posted by March 29.
Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation since December 2007, has announced her plans to leave the position when a successor is recruited. Ranked as one of the most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine, Sue Gardner is widely associated with the rise of the Wikimedia movement as a major custodian of human knowledge and cultural products.
Since its inception in May 2011, the Foundation's Visual Editor project has grown to become one of its main focuses. As the project nears its two-year birthday, the Signpost caught up with Visual Editor project manager James Forrester to discuss the progress on the project.
A paper presented at last month's CSCW Conference observes that "Mass collaboration systems are often characterized as unstructured organizations lacking rule and order", yet Wikipedia has a well developed body of policies to support it as an organization.
Sexology Arbitration, WP:OWN, Stealth-co-option - and Out of My Depth!Hello, Please respond here, because more people will read it and more people should, than on my talk page. I am now officially way out of my Wikipedia depth! I make a very straightforward edit on hebephilia as an occasional, but - on those occasions, serious and diligent - Wikipedia editor, and find myself launched into the maelstrom of a full-blown ongoing arbitration, itself at the centre of a medical firestorm. Help! In my case, I wanted to make it clearer - linking in through a weirdly unclear reference to 'hebephilia' on the Mystic River (film page - "what is that I thought?" - that hebephilia is, by the previous edits own definition chain (hebephilia > chronophilia > paraphilia), a sexual perversion. That's what a paraphilia is, it's what the word means. And then I get into an edit reversion war with Flyer22, ignores my comments on talk page clarify why I am making them, and then - when they comment there - wind up into a tirade. And then arrives on the scene another of the tag team of editors. Etc. This is totally unacceptable and dangerous. What I have seen is - I just worked out what it is - extreme WP:OWN behaviour - claiming I know nothing about Wikipedia, due to trivial edit anomalies, or inability to work the reporting systems to full effect etc, and wildly aggressive claims of soapboxing and original research. I tried to add my voice to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Sexology, but was warned off it aggresively by Flyer22, to explain this, and now - what do I do? Can you tell me how I CAN add my experience - and now analytical opinion to that arbitration? I am new to this entirely but it's clear this is not reasonable editing. Also, it's clear that there is denormativising, normalising, edit tag team around Flyer22 that is WP:OWNing this and related youth-sexualisation articles, claiming that the literatures suggests these are mere medical issues, not straightforward perversions. The key point is that, by stealth and obfuscation and aggressive article-territorialisation, the sexual status of underage kids is being made a medical nicety, rather than something more morally and socially critical than that. WP:NPOV is NOT an issue of, he-says she-says, or a blaze of peripheral 'sources' (as per hebephilia article), it's a reflection of the status quo, whether you like that or not. I have no strong view on what is good or bad sexualisation, but I do know that aggressively refusing to call hebephilia a perversion is factually wrong, biased, and extremely dangerous for the Wikipedia project's trustworthiness as an unbiased source. Can you help me now contribute to that arbitration - since I have been dragged in - and comment on this co-opting of these pages? Thanks. jmanooch 04:05, 30 March 2013 (UTC) Dragon Warrior III Good Article nominationHey, I read that you nominated to review the Dragon Warrior III for a good article? It seems it's been a few weeks since you left the message, and you asked for someone to remind you if you forgot, so I thought I would. :) Rhain1999 (talk) 03:26, 1 April 2013 (UTC) Sexology caseHi. In this edit in which you offered the alternate Discretionary Sanctions statement, did you intend to also remove the second sentence of the original statement, the one that was under discussion? Doing so made the two alternates exactly the same. I assume that it was a slip on your part, but I didn't want to revert you in case you had something else in mind. Best, Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:25, 4 April 2013 (UTC) The WikiProject Video Games Newsletter, Q1 2013The WikiProject Video Games Newsletter Project At a Glance
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Project Navigation To receive future editions of this newsletter, click here to sign up on the distribution list.
The Signpost: 01 April 2013
The Wikimedia Foundation has released its latest report card for the movement's hundreds of sites. The WMF has published statistics about the sites since 2009, but only recently have these been expanded in scope and depth to provide a rich source of data for investigating the movement and the world it serves. Dutch-born Erik Zachte is the driver of the WMF's statistical output, and he writes that the report card and accompanying traffic statistics comprise "enough tables, bar charts and plots to keep you busy for a while".
This week's Report is dedicated to answering our readers' questions about WikiProjects. The following Frequently Asked Questions came from feedback at the WikiProject Report's talk page, the WikiProject Council's talk page, and from previous lists of FAQs.
The Signpost interviewed prolific featured content creator and former Signpost "featured content" report writer Crisco 1492 about ? and Indonesian cinema. ? was the "Today's featured article" for 1 April 2013. 1 April is popularly known as April Fools' Day in many countries.
The first round of individual engagement grants (IEGs) have been awarded, disbursing about $55.6k (€42.7k) to seven applicants.
A case brought by Lecen involves several articles about former Argentinian president Juan Manuel de Rosas (1793–1877).
Users of ten Wikipedias got access to phase 2 of Wikidata following its first rollout to production wikis.
Dragon WarriorIt is much better now, let me know what you think! Judgesurreal777 (talk) 01:54, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
The Signpost: 08 April 2013
Numerous Wikimedia Commons editors have chimed in on the Wikimedia Foundation's deployment of a new feature to its mobile website. Allowing anonymous users to register and upload pictures for use in an article, the feature was placed prominently at the top of Wikipedia articles in multiple languages.
This week, we felt the world tremble in the presence of WikiProject Earthquakes. The project was started in May 2008 to deal with articles about earthquakes, aftershocks, seismology, seismologists, plate tectonics, and related articles. While the project has seen success building 14 Featured Articles, one A-class Article, and 21 Good Articles, a fairly heavy workload remains, with a relative WikiWork rating of 4.94. WikiProject Earthquakes maintains a portal, a list of open tasks, a popular pages listing, and an article alerts watchlist.
Last Friday, the Wikimedia movement awoke to news that one of their number—Rémi Mathis, a French volunteer editor—had been summoned to the offices of the interior intelligence service DCRI and threatened with criminal charges and fines if he did not delete an article on the French Wikipedia about a radio station used by the French military.
The arbitration committee is looking for expertise in Argentina and the Spanish language for a case involving former Argentinean president Juan Manuel de Rosas (1793–1877).
Four articles and two pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
The deployment of phase 2 of Wikidata to the English Wikipedia, originally scheduled for 8 April but delayed due to technical problems, may be rescheduled again as the result of community resistance.
DC meetup & dinner on Saturday, April 13!Please join Wikimedia DC for a social meetup and dinner at Vapiano (near Farragut North/Farragut West) on Saturday, April 13 at 5:30 PM All Wikipedia/Wikimedia and free knowledge/culture enthusiasts, regardless of editing experience, are welcome to attend! All ages welcome! For more information and to sign up, please see Wikipedia:Meetup/DC 36. Hope to see you there! Kirill [talk] 19:04, 10 April 2013 (UTC) Re:Awesome workThanks for your kind words. I've still got plenty to go (I haven't even finished a single season of any one show yet!). I'm going to hit some problems at some point as there hasn't been any production information published for the final two seasons of Voyager and the first season of Enterprise outside of the occasional interview. But I've got loads to do before I run out of other episodes, not to mention actors etc. Heck, one of the Next Generation executive producers doesn't even have a wikipage yet! I might break from a season by season process after I finish off the first season of TNG and do a few of the stand out episodes (although I intend to leave Best of Both Worlds and the Inner Light like carrots for me to do after I do something dreadful... like Shades of Grey or something ;) ). Miyagawa (talk) 19:15, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
DC meetups on April 19 and 20Wikimedia DC invites you to join us for two exciting events this weekend: On the evening of Friday, April 19, we're hosting our first-ever WikiSalon at our K Street office. The WikiSalon will be a twice-monthly informal meetup and collaborative editing event to help build the community of Wikimedia enthusiasts here in DC; please join us for its inaugural session. Light refreshments will be provided. On Saturday, April 20, we've partnered with the George Washington University to host the All Things GW Edit-a-Thon at the Teamsters Labor History Research Center. Please join us for behind-the-scenes tours of the University Archives and help edit articles about GWU history. We look forward to seeing you at one or both of these events! Kirill [talk] 20:09, 15 April 2013 (UTC) The Signpost: 15 April 2013The RfA process is widely discussed here on the English Wikipedia and it has been well documented that less and less new Requests for adminship are being filed. There are an abundance of bytes devoted to the discussion and analysis of this situation and plenty of hands have been wrung over the matter. Various RfCs have attempted to find a way to fix the problem. Many proposals have been made offering solutions, some more potentially drastic than others, with the goal of making the changes necessary to kick–start RfA back into regular action. However, Wikipedia operates based on consensus and, to this point, there are have simply been too many disagreeing views for us to reach a consensus on how to increase RfA activity.
This week, we ventured to WikiProject South Africa. The project was started in February 2005 and is home to thirteen pieces of featured material, two A-class articles, and twenty-one good articles.
The most recent move to reform the requests for adminship process on the English Wikipedia has failed, after a complex and drawn-out three-step procedure for community input was subject to decreasing participation as time wore on and came up with no clear consensus.
Four articles, twelve lists, and seven pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
Star TrekList of minor recurring characters in Star Trek: The Next Generation is completely awash in fancruft, and almost totally lacking in sources. I see no real out-of-universe notability, but somehow everyone else thinks it's salvageable. Do you wanna take a stab at fixing it up, or are you all just going to let it rot forever and hope it fixes itself? Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 08:14, 18 April 2013 (UTC) Although I consider myself quite patient.....I think you are displaying the manner of someone who is acting as if you WP:OWN Khan Noonien Singh.You are an editor of some experience, and really should know better. In addition, your reversion of my edit is pure WP:LAWYER and a clear WP:GAME of the Wikipedia rules. To say that Norther India is different from North India is just plain silly. In anycase. I don't wish to labour on the point or get in a WP:CONFLICT. Please take time to review your actions. Thanks SH 16:01, 18 April 2013 (UTC) Your lack of response... to this is most unfortunate. Jokestress (talk) 20:48, 22 April 2013 (UTC) Personal attacks on arbcom pages.I (and many others) know that arbcom cases traditionally (for better or worse) allow more 'robust' discussion than would be allowed elsewhere, but personal attacks such as this (and its immediate preceding comment) are getting a bit much. At this point the proposed decision talk page is just acting as an attack page against certain editors. (Who are far more patient than myself, in that they are quite sensibly not rising to it) There are other examples (see directly above), but some editors seem to have forgotton that even on arbcom pages, serious accusations need evidence to justify them or they need to be withdrawn. I dont expect any changes this late in a case, but I am surprised Sceptre is being allowed to get away with his comments without at least a warning. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:20, 23 April 2013 (UTC) The Signpost: 22 April 2013An article by John Sweeney published on 22 April 2013 on scnow.com, the website of the Florence, South Carolina Morning News, reported that Florence city officials have taken to monitoring and correcting the Wikipedia article on their city.
This week, we spent some time with a project that develops tools and methods for improving the user experience in the hope that new users will continue editing the encyclopedia. The project was started in July 2012 and has grown to include 124 members. The project's members partner with the Teahouse and the Welcoming Committee to spread WikiLove, welcome new users, encourage civility, and other related activities.
The Wikimedia Conference is an annual meeting of the chapters to discuss their status and the organisational development of the Wikimedia movement. For the first time it included groups that wish to be considered for WMF affiliation as thematic organisations and one of the three groups that was recently affiliated as a user group. The conference was also attended by members of the Wikimedia Foundation's (WMF) Board of Trustees, the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC), the WMF Affiliations Committee, and a representative of the Wikivoyage Association.
Nine articles, four lists, eight pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" status this week on the English Wikipedia.
The Sexology case is nearing completion after arbitrators were unable to agree on a topic ban for one of the participants.
On Monday, the English Wikipedia became the 12th wiki to be able to pull data from the central Wikidata.org repository, with other wikis scheduled to receive the update on Wednesday.
WBB ban appeal discussion at BASCHi. I don't know if you are aware of this and I am completely uninvolved in the situation, but there is a discussion going on at WT:BASC regarding if Will Beback should be allowed to come back to Wikipedia. The discussion is at WT:BASC#User:Will Beback appeal voting results. Thanks, Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 18:05, 25 April 2013 (UTC) Halo CEAYou didn't appreciate my promotional pizza? I thought it was quite the find. czar · · 00:47, 29 April 2013 (UTC) The Signpost: 29 April 2013
The Funds Dissemination Committee released its recommendations to the WMF board last Sunday. The news that the Hong Kong chapter's application for US$212K had failed was followed by a strongly worded resignation announcement by Deryck Chan on the public Wikimedia-l mailing-list.
On 24 April 2013, novelist Amanda Filipacchi published what turned out to be an influential op-ed in the New York Times; illuminating the unusual background of the Yuri Gadyukin hoax.
Nine articles, three lists, three pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" this week.
This week, we traveled to the Japanese Wikipedia's WikiProject Baseball for perspectives from a version of Wikipedia that treats WikiProjects as their own unique namespace (プロジェクト:) independent of "Wikipedia:".
The WP:TOP25 and WP:5000 reports chronicle the most popular Wikipedia articles on a weekly basis.
The Sexology case closed shortly after publication with no changes.
A report on an online service which was created to conduct real-time monitoring of Wikipedia articles of companies, and more.
This week saw the deployment of the Echo extension, also known as "notifications".
DC meetup & dinner on Saturday, May 11!Please join Wikimedia DC for a social meetup and dinner at Vapiano (near Farragut North/Farragut West) on Saturday, May 11 at 5:30 PM. All Wikipedia/Wikimedia and free knowledge/culture enthusiasts, regardless of editing experience, are welcome to attend! All ages welcome! For more information and to sign up, please see the meetup page. Hope to see you there! Kirill [talk] 23:09, 7 May 2013 (UTC) Input requestHello David Fuchs, I am requesting input from all participants in the discussion from the recent Signpost article on sexism in Wikipedia for a proposal at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/National teams#Proposed change: consistency in article title gendering. Thank you in advance for any contributions to the discussion. Dkreisst (talk) 21:14, 9 May 2013 (UTC) The Signpost: 06 May 2013Although not yet in great numbers, candidates are coming forward for Wikimedia Foundation elections, which will be held from 1 to 15 June. The elections will fill vacancies in three categories, the most prominent of which will be the three community-elected seats on the ten-member Board of Trustees (or the first Board meeting after the election results are announced, if sooner). The current two-year terms for these trustee positions ends on 1 September.
The Wikimedia Foundation will be receiving more than $100,000 worth of free developer time courtesy of internet giant Google, it was announced this week. The funds, allocated as part of Google's Summer of Code programme, will support up to 21 student developers through three months of coding time.
May sees the beginning of Round 3 of the 2013 WikiCup, with 33 of the original 127 competitors remaining. ... six articles, ten pictures, and two portals were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
The SOS Children's Villages news service advised on 3 May 2013 that Wikipedia for Schools 2013 is nearly ready for release. ... On 26 April 2013, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation published an article reviewing Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik's edits to the English Wikipedia, where it revealed the name of Breivik's English Wikipedia account.
This week's English Wikipedia project, WikiProject Biophysics, is home to several experts in their fields and a collaboration with the Biophysical Society. The project is hosting a contest through July 15 with six contributors winning $100 in cash and given the opportunity to attend the 2014 meeting of the Biophysical Society in San Francisco. Other strong entries will be awarded barnstars online and everyone who contributes can receive a physical button mailed out to them.
Link's Awakening TFAAs the promoter, I thought you may be interested in bringing The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening The Signpost: 13 May 2013
The removal of administrator rights from all volunteers on the Wikimedia Foundation's official website sparked a highly emotional reaction on the Wikimedia-l mailing list—one of the largest off-wiki methods of communication for the Wikimedia movement.
This week, we spent some time watching WikiProject Mixed Martial Arts, which was started in August 2005 and has grown to include 12 Good Articles and a Featured List.
Fourteen articles, three lists, and three pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia, including Boletus luridus, seen above.
An article published on May 10 on Odwyerpr.com written by Greg Hazley documented a "spar" between Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and public relations firm Qorvis partner Matt Lauer, who disputes Wikipedia's guideline discouraging public relations firms from editing articles on their clients.
The Race and politics case has been accepted for arbitration, and the evidence phase is now open. Two other cases remain open.
DC WikiSalon on May 24Wikimedia DC invites you to join us for our next DC WikiSalon, which will be held on the evening of May 24 at our K Street office. The WikiSalon an informal gathering of Wikimedia enthusiasts, who come together to discuss the Wikimedia projects and collaboratively edit. There's no set agenda, and guests are welcome to recommend articles for the group to edit or edit on their own. Light refreshments will be provided. We look forward to seeing you there! Kirill [talk] 18:24, 17 May 2013 (UTC) You're Doing It AgainThere is no WP:Undue in the lead at Khan Noonien Singh. Why do you keep reverting this? It's clearly stated in the description later that he's Northern Indian, not Indian per se. I'm adding a discuss tag because I think your'e WP:LAWYER the situation here. Thanks SH 15:38, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
The Signpost: 20 May 2013
Nominations closed last Friday for the three community-elected seats on the Wikimedia Foundation's (WMF) ten-member Board of Trustees—the ultimate corporate authority of the worldwide WMF. The Board has influential roles and responsibilities over one of the most powerful global information sources on the Internet.
This week, we traveled to WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome. The project was started in May 2006 and has 37 featured articles.
On 16 May, the Spanish Wikipedia became the seventh Wikipedia to cross the million article Rubicon, a symbolic yet important achievement.
Salon.com published another article detailing the ongoing incidents with Wikipedia user Qworty, who has identified himself as Robert Clark Young. It documents Qworty's role in the controversy involving Amanda Filipacchi's op-ed, which kindled a debate on Wikipedia sexism as it relates to categories, where Qworty was responsible for a series of revenge edits against Filipacchi in the days after she released her op-ed.
Nine articles, six lists, and eight pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
Hello! There is a DR/N request you may have interest in. This message is being sent to you let you know of a discussion at the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding a content dispute discussion you may have participated in. Content disputes can hold up article development and make editing difficult for editors. You do not need to participate; however, you are invited to help find a resolution. The discussion is about the topic Kahn Noonien Singh. Please join us to help form a consensus. Thank you! — TransporterMan (TALK) 19:33, 23 May 2013 (UTC) DRN case reminderHello, from a DR/N volunteer This is a friendly reminder to involved parties that there is a current Dispute Resolution Noticeboard case still awaiting comments and replies. If this dispute has been resolved to the satisfaction of the filing editor and all involved parties, please take a moment to add a note about this at the discussion so that a volunteer may close the case as "Resolved". If the dispute is still ongoing, please add your input. smileguy91talk I was just wondering....I just noticed your opening comments at DRN. As you may (or may not) have noticed, I've opened a discussion also, but I'm having problems with editors at Talk:Terra Nova (TV series) who are (amongst other things) refusing to make opening comments at DRN, aggressively arguing that they can't because the discussion hasn't been accepted.[2] I was just wondering if you would you consider popping in to let them know that it is OK add opening comment? They won't listen to me.[3] --AussieLegend (✉) 21:00, 23 May 2013 (UTC) Thanks. --AussieLegend (✉) 21:12, 23 May 2013 (UTC) Webinar / edit-a-thon at the National Library of Medicine (NLM)Join us at the NLM next week, either in person or online, to learn about NLM resources, hear some great speakers, and do some editing!  On Tuesday, 28 May there will be a community Wikipedia meeting at the United States National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland - with a second on Thursday, 30 May for those who can't make it on Tuesday. You can participate either in-person, or via an online webinar. If you attend in person, USB sticks (but not external drives) are ok to use. Please go to the event page to get more information, including a detailed program schedule. If you are interested in participating, please register by sending an email to [email protected]. Please indicate if you are coming in person or if you will be joining us via the webinar. After registering, you will receive additional information about how to get to our campus (if coming in-person) and details about how to join the webinar. Klortho (talk) 00:49, 25 May 2013 (UTC) The Signpost: 27 May 2013
Alongside the Signpost's interviews with the Wikimedia Foundation's (WMF) Board of Trustees candidates, the Signpost asked the candidates for the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) and its Ombudsperson position a series of questions relating to the positions they may be taking on. For the FDC candidates, this will include specific recommendations to the WMF on how to disburse over US$11 million in donors' funds to affiliate organizations, something which appears to have garnered little attention from the editing community at large so far.
In the continuing saga of User:Qworty's outing as author Robert Clark Young, several blogs and websites covered the now-banned user's anti-Pagan editing. In an article published on 22 May 2013, TechEye described Qworty's edits as a "reign of terror" and were pleased to find that he had not succeeded in removing several prominent Pagan biographies from the encyclopedia.
The elections for the three community seats on the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees start on 8 June. This second and final part of the interview explores two broad themes: Meta, the site that hosts movement-wide coordination; and offline entities—the chapters and the new thematic organisations and user groups.
This week, we plotted out the demarcations of WikiProject Geographical Coordinates, which aims to create a single standard of handling coordinates in Wikipedia articles.
Twelve articles, four lists, and twelve pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
An article in Library Review offers a much-needed comparison of data from a population of editors outside the English Wikipedia.
Second only to the technical track of Wikimania in terms of numbers, the Berlin Hackathon (2009–2012) provided those with an interest in the software that underpins Wikimedia wikis and supports its editors a place to gather, exchange ideas and learn new skills.
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