Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2005-06-06
Downtime scheduled Tuesday for server relocation
Wikipedia and all other Wikimedia sites will be unavailable for a period of time on Tuesday, 7 June, as the main cluster of servers is moved to a new location. This follows a brief period last week when the sites had to be put into read-only mode.
Last Saturday, Wikimedia Foundation President Jimmy Wales announced that at 7:00 a.m. (UTC) this coming Tuesday, the servers located at the Neutelligent colocation center in Florida would be moved to a new facility across the street. The exact length of time for which Wikipedia will be unavailable is not certain, but Wales said "the site will absolutely be down for awhile." Employees of the colocation facility will handle the move with assistance from Wales, along with a few other Wikimedia volunteers and staff.
Mark Williamson wondered why the servers were not being moved in two or more shifts, so that one group could always remain available. In response, Wales explained that "It was a difficult decision", but the complexity of such an operation, and the risk that mistakes could produce an even longer period of downtime, favored handling the move all at once. Site performance would also likely suffer from extreme slowness with only a partial set of servers.
Meanwhile, the Foundation has added its third data center with the addition of eleven servers in Amsterdam, hosted by Kennisnet. This joins a group of servers installed last December in Aubervilliers, France to provide a squid cache. These servers may be used to host a site message during the downtime; however, because the main database servers are located in Florida, the Wikipedia database will still have to be offline.
For Wikipedia editors (as opposed to readers), it will be the second period of unavailability within a week. After suffering performance problems on Monday and Tuesday, Wikipedia was set to read-only mode for about two hours last Wednesday for server maintenance. During the maintenance, security measures for user passwords were also upgraded (see related story). Reports of site performance issues virtually disappeared after the maintenance was completed.
Content arbitration, reform of mediation process discussed
A broad discussion of Wikipedia's dispute resolution system began last week, after a renewed suggestion to consider a method for arbitrating article content issues. The performance of the mediation process, and ideas for reactivating it, also came under scrutiny.
Content Committee proposed
The initiative for this dialogue came from members of the Arbitration Committee. After some discussion on their private mailing list, arbitrator Raul654 drafted an analysis of the situation and requested comment from the community. He proposed the creation of a "Content Committee" that could issue rulings in disputes over article content, questions that the Arbitration Committee has so far generally avoided deciding.
Part of the rationale for this idea was that already some arbitration cases ultimately boil down to content disputes, as the worst troublemakers are now being dealt with more efficiently. The proposal would theoretically be a delegation of the Arbitration Committee's power, as the arbitration policy says the arbitrators may hear any dispute "at their discretion." However, the policy also includes a guideline that they "will primarily investigate interpersonal disputes", and arbitrator The Epopt indicated that he would not agree to consider content-based disputes.
As formulated, the proposal would make the Content Committee subordinate to the Arbitration Committee, which would serve as a court of appeal. In situations where two people or groups were debating over two versions of an article and unable to reach a compromise, the Content Committee would have the authority to issue binding decisions in the matter. Meanwhile, cases involving user conduct would still go directly to arbitration.
Other alternatives
The resulting debate included reactions to this proposal, a number of suggested alternatives, and general commentary about the dispute resolution process. Several people offered variations on the original idea, such as having the Content Committee limited to reviewing the adequacy of sources for disputed assertions, or focused on policies such as no original research and verifiability.
Not everyone was certain that these limited proposals would do enough to solve the problem. Meelar said, "If you ask me, consensus on talk pages is capable of handling most matters of factual accuracy; it's other types of disputes that present the largest challenge to the current system of dispute resolution." Meanwhile, Tony Sidaway questioned whether there was even a problem amenable to this type of solution, arguing that "Wikipedia cannot write stable articles on subjects about which there is significant disagreement that cannot be expressed in a manner neutral enough to satisfy all major parties."
Viability of mediation
Mgm suggested reviving the Mediation Committee as an alternative, as the mediation process has struggled to be effective. The committee has not been visibly active in processing requests for mediation for over a month, and recently lost its chair as Jwrosenzweig is taking a hiatus from Wikipedia. In an effort to address the situation, Mgm has nominated himself as a new mediator and indicated that he would be willing to take over as chair.
In response to this proposal, Raul654 argued that the mediation system was a failure, and that this was due to fundamental flaws in the process rather than the mediators being overworked. However, others expressed sympathy for the ideals of mediation, although they remained unsure of the best way to correct its weaknesses. Additional ideas were floated including a major expansion of the Mediation Committee and making mediation mandatory.
For the time being, the general debate is limited to proposals and discussion. No voting is taking place, although Mgm and several earlier candidates have open nominations being considered on the Mediation Committee page.
Debate over whether all content has feature potential
Sparked by the nomination of Starfleet ranks and insignia for featured article status and the nominations of List of religious topics and List of lists of mathematical topics for featured list status, debate broke out on both fronts, addressing the issue of whether or not all non-deletable content is inherently featureable.
Last week also included the promotion of the first two featured lists. In addition, there were seven new administrators, nine new featured articles, and five new featured pictures.
If it's not deleted, can it be featured?
A number of users argued this week that some content, while not deletable on Votes for Deletion, is inherently ineligible for featured status. The nomination of the article Starfleet ranks and insignia on featured article candidates led to complaints that "fancruft" was becoming too prevalent on wikipedia, and that it should not be featured. Opposition focused on the presence of unverifiable information like obscure ranks that were the results of speculation by Star trek fans.
Featured Article Director Raul654 insisted that any article whose subject is notable enough for inclusion in the encyclopedia can theoretically be a featured article. After a lengthy discussion, most participants agreed to focus on actionable objections as provided by the guidelines for voting on candidates. Accordingly, some of those objecting to the topic rephrased their criticisms to address the content of the article; in the end, the nomination still failed.
Meanwhile, debate ensued over whether or not the featured list criteria should also include a requirement that all objections to list promotion be actionable, thereby asserting that all non-deletable lists are featureable. Two nominations in particular, List of religious topics and List of lists of mathematical topics, were the subject of much discussion, as some users suggested that they were inherently not comprehensive, and thus could not satisfy the feature criteria. Others argued that they were "reasonably" comprehensive, and suggested that it if any list survives votes for deletion, it should be eligible for featured status. The difficulty of providing references for such lists was also a concern, leading to the proposal that references not be required of all featured lists.
New admins
Since last week, seven new administrators were promoted, including Paul August (nom) and FreplySpang (nom), who were both promoted unanimously, as well as Seabhcan (nom), Thryduulf (nom), CesarB (nom), Marine 69-71 (nom), and Ugen64 (nom).
Featured articles
Ta bu shi da yu just couldn't stay out of the building—according to his user page, he's back for the "5:30 – 6:00 PM EST matinee", which apparently involves creating high quality content. His Windows 2000 article was promoted this week, and a spinoff from that article, Architecture of Windows 2000, is currently a candidate, alongside another article of his, Architecture of Btrieve. Additionally, Polish September Campaign was promoted, giving Piotrus his tenth featured article.
New featured articles in the last week were Gbe languages, The Brothers Karamazov, Polish September Campaign, Our Gang, Swedish language, Robert A. Heinlein, Sudoku, Windows 2000, and Blitzkrieg. The total for May was 33 articles, an increase over April's 31 but still significantly lower than the 46 promoted in March.
Mahatma Gandhi and Nuclear weapon, both featured article removal candidates, kept their featured status, while Assassination and Iraqi insurgency were both nominated for removal, joining current candidates Computer security and Copyright.
Featured lists
Two featured list candidates were promoted: List of popes and List of North American birds. These are the first of their kind, as the idea of having featured lists is just getting started (see archived story). Ten additional lists are currently candidates.
Featured pictures
5 featured picture candidates were promoted, and Eagle Nebula was defeatured on the featured picture removal process due to licensing concerns.
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The Report On Lengthy Litigation
The Arbitration Committee continued to steadily accept new cases but only issued a ruling in one matter last week. To keep the growth of its caseload in check, the committee may close some cases without a decision if the dispute is no longer active.
Last Thursday, the committee concluded a case involving LevelCheck, deciding to have this account blocked indefinitely as a disruptive user and possible sockpuppet. The evidence presented showed that LevelCheck had, ever since the creation of the account, started or gotten involved in a variety of disputes, especially by controversial actions dealing with categories, templates, and redirects. The arbitrators concluded based on LevelCheck's "inherent familiarity with Wikipedia procedures and policies" that the account was likely a sockpuppet.
Meanwhile, arbitrator Neutrality moved to close two cases in an effort to clear out disputes that have gone stale and no longer warrant being handled through arbitration. The first was the case against Wareware, who has not edited since a month before the request was made, and this matter in fact appears set to close. Neutrality also recommended closing the case involving Instantnood, indicating that "this is generally a content matter and the dispute seems to have died down." At last check, this motion still needed the support of one additional arbitrator for the case to be closed.
New requests
In a request carried over from previous weeks, the stalemate over Netoholic's request for arbitration against Cantus was broken and the case opened based on a 5-2 vote. Another request, with multiple users complaining about the behavior of Zivinbudas on Lithuanian subjects, was opened on Thursday. Two additional cases were opened on Sunday: a complaint by ChrisO against Argyrosargyrou for edit warring on articles related to Cyprus, and one by Meelar and Firebug against Mlorrey regarding a dispute over gun control articles.
Finally, on Sunday Everyking submitted a request for the Arbitration Committee to review his case. The decision in that case, issued 5 April, banned Everyking from editing articles related to Ashlee Simpson for a year, but provided that he could apply to have this sanction lifted after two months. The two months having expired, Everyking asked for the ban to be removed.
Password security upgraded after Slashdot furor
An old list of accounts with matching passwords was deleted last week after its existence prompted an extended discussion on Slashdot. In the aftermath of this debate, the developers took advantage of server maintenance downtime to upgrade password security.
The page in question, User:Tim Starling/Password matches, was mentioned on Slashdot on 29 May in an anonymous comment in a separate discussion about the security weaknesses of places that use email addresses as user IDs. The gist of this posting was resubmitted and appeared two days later as a separate news item on the site, resulting in a sometimes heated debate about the appropriateness of this practice.
Why it existed in the first place
Developer Tim Starling had actually created this page back in July 2004, in an effort to identify people who were using multiple accounts in a disruptive fashion. Passwords on Wikimedia sites are stored using a hash function, so Starling determined which passwords were identical by running a query to find accounts with matching password hashes.
The page did not publish any of the actual passwords, only the accounts that matched. Starling has indicated that he only listed accounts having the same password as "the few most active trolls on Wikipedia at the time." The largest group identified was those matching the password being used by Lir, who at the time was involved in an arbitration case dealing with his misuse of sockpuppet accounts.
Even at the time, the use of this tactic in uncovering sockpuppets proved controversial, and the page was nominated for deletion. It had survived this process, although once the Slashdot story was published Erik Möller replaced it with a brief message of explanation. The list itself continued to be accessible thru the history function until developer Brion Vibber learned of its continued existence and promptly deleted the page, replacing it with a copy of Möller's message.
The primary concern was that some of the accounts might belong to different people, and if so this meant that publishing the list had automatically disclosed their password to anyone else with accounts in the same group. Möller reported that at least one of the accounts listed was a legitimate user, Perrak, who is actually an administrator on the German Wikipedia. It was also pointed out that the page might reveal accounts that had weak passwords and could be vulnerable to guessing. In fact, the password for one group of accounts in the list was discovered to be "troll", so these had to be changed.
Adding salt to store passwords
Many of the arguments initially raised in the deletion debate reappeared in the discussion on Slashdot. The easiest way to address the privacy concern mentioned was to use a salt, which is a random string of values added to the password hash, so that otherwise identical passwords do not match each other. Starling has also said he would not use this tactic again, which if repeated would violate the recently adopted privacy policy.
According to Vibber, MediaWiki has had support for salted passwords for a long time, but this had not been applied to Wikipedia because this would render existing (unsalted) passwords inoperative. The code for adding salt to the password hashes was actually one of Starling's first contributions to the software. To correct the situation, during some downtime for server maintenance on Wednesday Vibber ran a database query that upgraded existing password hashes to add the salt.
Afterward, a few users did report that their passwords were no longer working, possibly due to a glitch in the upgrade. After investigating, Vibber said he believed the problem was traceable to having used the "email me a new password" feature without then changing the password. Apparently, the new passwords in those cases were not updated, so the operation was performed again for accounts that might be affected.
Wales and Brockhaus CEO meet the press together
Last week, Jimmy Wales appeared at a press conference with the head of the firm that produces the Brockhaus encyclopedia. The meeting was basically a polite exchange of ideas and builds on previous contacts between the German chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation and Brockhaus.
The conference featured a discussion between Wales and Alexander Bob, CEO of the Bibliographisches Institute & F.A. Brockhaus AG, publisher of the leading German encyclopedia. Also present was Klaus Holoch, press spokesperson for Brockhaus. The event was sponsored by Wissenschafts-Pressekonferenz e.V. and held last Wednesday at the offices of the Axel Springer publishing house in Hamburg.
The discussion was moderated by Marcus Franken, a journalist and member of the sponsoring organization. About 20 other journalists were present, as was Ralf Szymanski, the head of Directmedia Publishing, which recently released the German Wikipedia on DVD (see archived story).
Quality and timeliness discussed
After a brief introduction to the Wikipedia project, the topic turned to quality control issues and whether each organization viewed the other as a competitor. Both Wales and Bob agreed that the primary goal was to produce high-quality content, and generally indicated that the two encyclopedias were not so much competition as complementary products. While Wikipedia has the advantages of being cheaper and quicker to update, Brockhaus emphasizes its long tradition and a uniform editorial policy to ensure its quality. In discussing the question of Wikipedia's reliability, Bob pointed to the recent publicity surrounding disputed edits to Wikipedia articles about the candidates in a recent German regional election (see archived story).
Wales said he had changed his mind on the question of whether the business models of existing encyclopedia publishers could coexist with Wikipedia. He indicated that the Encyclopædia Britannica had already suffered from competing with Encarta and was scared of Wikipedia. In contrast, he felt Brockhaus had withstood the challenge of Encarta more successfully than Britannica, and thus felt less threatened and more open to dialogue.
Meanwhile, the question was raised for Brockhaus of how timely it could keep its content. Bob pointed out that some current topics were already covered, and many entries are well-established and don't require constant editing. In addition, he noted that Brockhaus will soon be coming out with a new print edition, its twenty-first, scheduled for release this fall.
Shortly afterward, a copy of portions of this new edition were found on an unsecured server at the University of Saarbrücken (although not secured, Brockhaus pointed out that they were not reachable through public sites). It was discovered that a short article on Wikipedia was included, and Jakob Voss initiated an effort to see if Wikipedians could edit this article and improve it, given the space limitation provided. Bernd Kreissig, head of Brockhaus' new media unit, promptly complained that this advance publication of a complete article was a copyright violation, and that the actions were disrespectful even if intended in a friendly way.
Der Spiegel ran a story on the dialogue between Wales and Bob, and also noted that the German Wikipedia has been nominated for an award by the Adolf Grimme Institut. It is one of 15 websites competing for the Grimme Online Award in a category for Wissen und Bildung (Knowledge and Education). Now in their fifth year, the awards will be announced on 30 June at a ceremony in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany.
This article is based in part on a report from Mathias Schindler.
Wikipedia named one of 2005's best products
Wikipedia picked up another honor last week as it was named one of the year's 100 best products by a major computer magazine, following a similar designation received recently by Wiktionary.
Last Wednesday, PC World magazine released its list, "The 100 Best Products of 2005", which appears in its July issue. This honor, which the magazine calls its "World Class Awards", is for "great products [that] meld practical features with innovation." In spite of the designation, however, not all of the "products" are commercial in nature, and Wikipedia is actually one of 23 honorees that are available free of charge.
Wikipedia came in at #60 overall on the ranked list, which was topped by Mozilla Firefox. The list — dominated, unsurprisingly, by computer software and hardware products — included only a handful of other websites, among them Google, Flickr, and Internet Archive. Also included at #33 was the website of the The New York Times, the only other information site to appear.
Earlier, Wiktionary was named one of the top 100 websites by PC Magazine in its annual feature, "Top 100 Sites You Didn't Know You Couldn't Live Without". The story was part of the magazine's 26 April edition (in contrast to PC World, the list is not ranked in order). Last year, Wikipedia was included as one of the top 100 sites in the same feature.
In other news related to rankings, Alterego reported in his blog Monday that Wikipedia has climbed up a notch in Google's rankings to achieve a PageRank of 9. Specifically, he indicated that it was the main page of the English Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) that reached this mark, rather than Wikipedia's multilingual portal (http://www.wikipedia.org), which still has a PageRank of 8. The difference can be explained because traffic to the portal would generally only come from people who don't have the main page for a particular language bookmarked. Only 63 sites have a PageRank of 10, the highest score possible.
In the news this week
Bloggers discuss benefits of MediaWiki as collaboration tool
MediaWiki was written especially for Wikipedia, but as it is open source, highly featured and freely available it has been turned to a diverse range of uses. This week, a writer on the technology blog Corante discussed how wikis could enhance collaboration in a wide variety of fields [1].
Open source blogging software WordPress uses Mediawiki to work on its documentation, and wordpress founder Matt Mullenweg said there were many reasons why wikis can enhance collaboration, the main one being that they are so easy to use. The lack of barriers to involvement in a wiki encourage a great deal more user participation than many other models.
Mullenweg also offered his thoughts on open source software in general, and said he thought it had a much brighter future than commercial software. "I wouldn't want my company reliant on someone else's business model in such a rapidly changing market. Selling software is dead", he said. However, he noted that a great deal of open source software is written without regard for what commercial users want. Because of this, open source software might sometimes be slow to develop in response to the needs of its user base.
Open source methods vital for business future
Continuing on the theme of open source software's advantages over its commercial rivals, South African newspaper Business Today examined the pros and cons of either side [2], and noted that Linux had confounded industry analysts by being both cheaper and more reliable than Microsoft Windows. Wikipedia, said the article, is "an equally visible example of the open-source idea".
The article looked at the expansion of the open source philosophy into media beyond IT, and cited the success of collaborative news project ohmynews in South Korea, although it did not mention the similar Wikimedia project Wikinews.
Wikipedia spreads around schools in South Africa
Also in South Africa, it was reported this week that a project to equip schools in Western Cape province with computer equipment has now installed its 100th school computer lab in the Western Cape. The Schools Linux User Group plans to extend its programme of supplying refurbished PCs to Eastern Cape and Limpopo provinces next year, and Wikipedia is one of the packages installed on the computers, according to the website tectonic [3].
Wikipedia vandalised by Socialtext CEO
EContent magazine reported this week on a live vandalism of Wikipedia at a conference in Arizona in April [4]. At the Buying & Selling eContent show, Ross Mayfield, the CEO of collaborative software developers Socialtext, apparently began his presentation by vandalising a Wikipedia article. He revisited the article at the end of his talk, by which time the changes had been reverted.
Econtent's reporter did not seem overly impressed by this demonstration of Wikipedia's self-healing nature. She described Wikipedia as the best known wiki on the web, but despite Wikipedia now being firmly established in the top 100 sites on the internet (see archived story), she said that "may not be saying much, given wikis' relative lack of visibility".
Citations
Among the news outlets using Wikipedia content as source material this week are Maine newspaper Magic City News looking to Wikipedia to help work out if Mexico belongs to the Third World [5]; right-wing website Conservative Voice quoting from European Union following referendum results in France and the Netherlands saying no to the proposed EU constitution [6]; website getunderground.com examining the phenomenon of Jumping the shark [7]; and Philadelphia newspaper the Carlisle Sentinel advising its readers on the lethal dose for various animals of Conium, a plant whose frequent neighbor, Dame's Rocket, is common enough to cause farmers some concern [8].