Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2006-08-07

Single-page Edition

WP:POST/1

7 August 2006

Publicity photos
Guidance on publicity photos called dangerous

Baseball biographies
False death information survives for a month in baseball biographies

Wikiversity
Wikiversity officially announced by Wales

Wikimania tech
Single-user login, stable versioning planned soon

Wikimania announcements
Wales, others announce new projects at Wikimania

Wikiality
Wikipedia satire leads to vandalism, protections

Atlantic Monthly
Early history of Wikipedia reviewed

Interwiki report
Report from the French Wikipedia

News and notes
News and notes

In the news
Wikipedia in the news

Features and admins
Features and admins

Arbitration report
The Report On Lengthy Litigation

2006-08-07

Guidance on publicity photos called dangerous

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By Michael Snow

Wikipedia practice with respect to claiming fair use for images became the subject of discussion again last week, this time focusing on publicity photos of celebrities. Jimbo Wales discouraged the use of such photos when they are not freely licensed and said the Wikipedia:Publicity photos page is "dangerous".

Although designated an "essay", rather than a policy or guideline, the page is linked from such places as the Wikipedia:Fair use guideline and the {{promophoto}} template, which is fairly heavily used. It purports to be limited to photos that are distributed in press kits, although it seems clear that not all photos given this tag were actually part of such kits. Jkelly called the category in which they are listed, Category:Promotional images, "one of the top five most problematic image categories by any measure I can think of."

For most celebrities, Wales said Wikipedia is better off having no photo at all than a fair use image. Not all those joining the discussion were fully prepared to agree, arguing that any image that improves an article helps Wikipedia's mission to spread knowledge, and should be used if not legally problematic. The point was also raised that freely licensed images tend to be of arguably poorer quality compared to the publicity shots of celebrities typically seen elsewhere.

Current practice on the English Wikipedia (but not for many other languages) allows images with a claim to fair use under United States copyright law. However, not all images covered by this are given equal leeway. Existing policy calls for the replacement of fair use images when a freely licensed alternative is provided.

Wales indicated his view that fair use should be even more limited, except for "a very narrow class of images that are of unique historical importance." He cited as examples album covers (when used to illustrate the article about the album) or movie screenshots, along with irreplaceable historic images such as that of Elián González being taken into the custody of federal agents. He admitted that formal Wikipedia policy does not yet require this conclusion in every case.

As part of the emphasis on freely licensed images, in May 2005 Wales prohibited images that were restricted to noncommercial use or Wikipedia-only permission (see archived story). Work to clean up the existing base of images has been ongoing for some time, with those participating in the effort occasionally voicing frustration at the pace of progress. Some have pointed to anecdotal accounts of freely licensed images being replaced with fair use images, saying this discourages photographers who go to the effort of providing free content.

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2006-08-07

False death information survives for a month in baseball biographies

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By Michael Snow

The insertion of erroneous death dates in a number of articles about former baseball players received attention last week when a newspaper reported on one such player who is still alive.

The Beaver County Times revealed these changes on Tuesday, 2 August, in a story about local resident Tito Francona, a retired player and the father of current Boston Red Sox manager Terry Francona. A claim that Francona had died in November 2004 was added on 6 July, and the information remained in the article until after the Times published its report.

This was one of several biographies on baseball players hit by similar vandalism, sometimes involving changing dates for people who have already died instead. Also affected were articles on Buddy Myer, Cecil Travis, Buddy Lewis, Sam West, and Tommie Aaron. The edits were sophisticated enough to remove the inclusion in Category:Living people from articles to which this applied, and add categories that matched the incorrect dates.

Besides Francona, the articles on Myer and Aaron had not been fixed, or the corrections had been incomplete, before the appearance of the Times report. In the case of Myer and Francona, the edits added other bogus biographical tidbits at the same time, in addition to the erroneous death dates.

Based on the timing of this vandalism, it appears that the inspiration came from another Wikipedia-related story in the news. The changes took place one day after the death of Kenneth Lay and a widely publicized report about inaccurate information that briefly appeared in the Wikipedia article on Lay (see archived story).

WHOIS information showed that the IP addresses involved came from Wyoming.com, an internet service provider based in Riverton, Wyoming. It seems likely that only one person was responsible but was assigned different IP addresses at different times. The initial batch of edits, which also targeted articles about actors and films, was largely reverted within a couple of hours by Jaranda, but some from a second IP address survived longer.

Francona was undisturbed by the erroneous report of his death—he said he had never even heard of Wikipedia. According to the Times story, he could not recall specifically what he was doing on the day he supposedly died.

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2006-08-07

Wikiversity officially announced by Wales

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By Ral315

In a keynote speech at Wikimania 2006 on Friday, Jimbo Wales announced that Wikiversity had been officially approved by the board, and would go into a three-language beta test "within a month".

Wikiversity was approved by 69.8% of voters in November 2005, reaching the two-thirds majority required to submit the proposal to the Wikimedia board. However, the measure stalled at the board level, as the board requested changes to the proposal in order for approval. The changes included the removal of credentials and online courses, and to clarify the concept of e-learning. Though work on the proposal continued, the proposal's approval had not been publicly announced until Wikimania.

The beta test would last six months, after which it would be reviewed. The test would start in three languages, with more possibly added as the project grows. Wales did not specify which three languages would be chosen, but as much of the Wikiversity proposal was based within the English and German communities, it seems likely that English and German would be two of the three beta languages.

Wikiversity would contain materials useful for learning that do not fit into Wikibooks' specific area (textbooks). Very little information is yet known about how Wikiversity will be launched, and exactly when the launch would occur, but many of the details are being worked on the meta-wiki.

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2006-08-07

Single-user login, stable versioning planned soon

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By Ral315

Wales, others announce new projects at Wikimania

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By Carmelapple

OLPC company chooses Wikipedia to load snapshots of Wikipedia articles

At Wikimania, this week, Jimmy Wales announced that the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project has chosen to load a snapshot of select Wikipedia articles onto the laptops it is developing.

OLPC is an MIT-based project established to provide all children in the world access to knowledge and the opportunity to explore, experiment and express themselves. Wikipedia is among the first content to be featured in OLPC laptops. One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is a non-profit organization created to design, manufacture, and distribute laptops that are sufficiently inexpensive to provide all children in the world access to knowledge and modern forms of education. The laptops will be sold to governments and issued to children by schools on a basis of one laptop per child. These machines will be rugged, Linux-based, and so energy efficient that hand-cranking alone will generate sufficient power for operation. Mesh networking will give many machines Internet access from one connection.

Webaroo adds Wikipedia to web content packs

At Wikimania, Webaroo announced that they had added Wikipedia to over two dozen other web content packs. The Webaroo Wikipedia Pack lets users carry the Web-based, free-content encyclopedia on a smart phone with a compact flash card. Webaroo users can now search the information content of more than one million knowledgeable articles anytime they wish.

Web packs are a repository of free searchable Web pages on a specific topic, including things like New York City, Batman, Oprah Winfrey, soccer news or just regular old U.S. news. Webaroo says it "determines the content value based on the diversity, relevancy and quality of the pages so that they deliver terrific results for almost any query related to the topic being looked up."

If you would like to view Webaroo content on a handheld, a Pocket PC 2003 SE or Windows Mobile 5.0 OS is needed, as well as the Webaroo application for the PC and a USB cable with ActiveSync on the computer for connectivity. Finally, a minimum 256MB external storage card (SD, CF or mini-SD) is required. Webaroo is recommending at least 1GB of RAM and 10GB of free space on the system for the Wikipedia Web pack.

More details are available at the webaroo official site.

Other announcements

Advisory board: The Wikimedia Foundation will also now have an advisory board to help upgrade partnerships, public relations, financing, etc.

Wikiwyg: Wikiwyg is a joint venture between Socialtext and Wikia to bring WYSIWYG editing to MediaWiki. The release date is unknown, but both Wikia and Socialtext are devoting their full time development resources towards it.

Image tagging: Wales noted that a lot of progress was made last year on image tagging, with virtually all the images in some problematic categories eliminated. However, Wales said that there is still much work to do in refining and reforming "fair use."

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2006-08-07

Wikipedia satire leads to vandalism, protections

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By Ral315

On 31 July, and again on 2 August, Wikipedia was featured on the news satire The Colbert Report. The show's host, Stephen Colbert, poked fun at Wikipedia's nature, and encouraged viewers to insert falsehoods into existing articles. As a result, a number of articles were protected from editing, and some still remain semi-protected as of press time.

The Colbert Report has a regular feature known as "The WØRD", where a word or phrase, sometimes a portmanteau, is featured (in the show's debut episode, truthiness was coined). Last Monday's episode of The Colbert Report featured the word "Wikiality", a portmanteau of wiki and reality. Colbert said that "any website that has a longer entry on truthiness than Lutheranism has got its priorities straight." After "confusion" over his favorite pejorative term for Oregon, Colbert showed a screenshot of The Colbert Report, noting that he referred to the state as both "the Canada of California" and "Washington's Mexico" (a fact actually found in a separate article). Colbert decided instead that Oregon was "Idaho's Portugal", and purportedly edited the article to say so. He commented on the process, saying "Any user can change any entry, and if enough other users agree with them, it becomes true." Colbert also stated that "George Washington never owned slaves", and "Africa has more elephants today than it did 10 years ago".

Near the end of the segment, Colbert says "Find the page on Elephants on Wikipedia, and create an entry that says the number of elephants has tripled in the last six months ... Together, we can create a reality that we can all agree on - the reality that we just agreed on." After the segment's airing, Elephant was immediately semi-protected by MarkSweep, then fully protected one minute later by Fire Star. However, clever viewers made similar edits to pages on numerous species of elephants (and other, unrelated articles such as Elefant (band)), prompting the semi-protection of most articles relating to elephants. Other articles mentioned in the segment such as Oregon, Portugal, and Colbert-related articles were subject to similar elephant-related additions.

Before the segment aired, the username Stephencolbert was registered, and made two edits: first, stating that Oregon was Idaho's Portugal ([1]), and second, saying "In conclusion, George Washington did not own slaves ([2]). Though the edits were made around the time that The Colbert Report is taped, some question was raised over whether the edits were actually made by Colbert; while he pretended to edit Wikipedia on the show, it's possible that audience members could have edited via mobile phone. As such, the account was blocked indefinitely, under the username policy. Blocking administrator Tawker attempted to contact Comedy Central to confirm the account's identity, but no response has yet been received.

Colbert touched on the subject twice on Wednesday's episode. During one segment, he took "phone calls", purportedly from viewers. In the final call, "Maurice K." from "Beltsander, California" chastised Colbert and viewers for editing, saying that as a result, he was unable to add an "important fact" to an elephant article. Prompted by Colbert to share the fact on-air, the caller did so, saying "When fully erect, an adult elephant's penis is..." before being interrupted by Colbert. Later in the show, during a segment on latchkey kids, Colbert claimed that "Latchkey kids are more likely to be crazy, I read it on Wikipedia. Look it up." As a result, Latchkey kid was quickly protected within 15 seconds of the statement being said on air.

As a result of the incident, the article on The Colbert Report received significant revision. In a section titled "Influence on the English language", a sub-section on "Wikiality" was added, but after discussion, was removed. Another sub-section on "Gaysrael", a term for Massachusetts, a supposed place where American homosexuals could move to, preserving "traditional marriage" in other states, was removed. As a result, the section was replaced with one dealing exclusively with the term "Truthiness".

Little press attention was originally directed to the issue. MTV News published an article on Thursday. On the block of Stephencolbert, Jimmy Wales was quoted: "It's fine, we have a sense of humor, and if we wanted to, we could figure out if it was really him making the changes. But why bother? We banned the user because of his or her behavior, because they were messing around with some articles and encouraging other people to mess with several articles about elephants." A Sunday article in the Washington Post contained some inaccuracies, saying that "enough people obeyed Colbert to crash Wikipedia's servers", and that "Wikipedia took the smart step of posting the pre-Colbert entries alongside the many, many post-Colbert ones to show exactly what was changed and when it was changed by subsequent editors." The former claim is slightly untrue; the site was read-only for ten minutes due to an unrelated error. The latter refers to the diff function, which has been available on all articles since at least March 2002.

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2006-08-07

Early history of Wikipedia reviewed

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By Michael Snow

The prelude to Wikipedia and the history of its first year were the subject of a feature in the Atlantic Monthly that came out last week.

The article, by historian Marshall Poe, appeared in the magazine's September issue. Its online version included links throughout the text to Wikipedia articles about some of the concepts discussed. Accompanying the feature were an exploration of neutral point of view in the context of abortion, along with an interview with Poe himself.

In particular, Poe considered in depth the backgrounds of Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. Going back before Wikipedia and even Nupedia, the article discussed their business and academic experience, as well as their Internet activity on mailing lists and elsewhere.

The debate over whom to identify as the "founder" of Wikipedia was not explicitly covered, but did figure indirectly. Poe related Sanger's story about having dinner with a friend that inspired the Wikipedia proposal. Regarding their respective roles in the project, Poe wrote, "Wales's part in it was clear; he owned Wikipedia. Sanger's role was murkier."

The murkiness was partly due to Sanger's decision not to import his Nupedia title of editor-in-chief, but simply call himself "chief organizer". The authority issues manifested in the description of Sanger's disputes with The Cunctator and his eventual departure from the project.

In his separate interview, Poe explained his methods for reconstructing this history. As befits his field of expertise (early modern Russian history), Poe focused mostly on the documentary record, such as mailing lists and talk page discussion.

The interviewer noted that the article never quoted Sanger and Wales as primary sources (although it does quote their words). Poe said that he emphasized the documents, although he did interview both Wales and Sanger, because people's stories about events 5-10 years ago are often inaccurate. He commented that he was fortunate that Wikipedia has "a remarkably complete record of what had been done."

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2006-08-07

Report from the French Wikipedia

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By Pyb, and EyOne

Status and community news

As of Tuesday, 1 August 2006, the French language Wikipedia contained about 337,357 articles. Of these, 290 articles (approximately 1 in 1200) are considered Articles de qualité (the French Wikipedia equivalent of featured articles). The French language Wikipedia has no equivalent of good articles page in the English or Lesenswerte Artikel in the German Wikipedia yet. In addition, 15 portals are considered Portails de qualité.

The latest three additions to the list of articles de qualité are: Battle of Adrianople (fr:Bataille d'Andrinople), Eiffel Tower (fr:Tour Eiffel) and Domestication (fr:espèce domestiquée).

As of 1 August 2006, 106 users of the French Wikipedia are administrators. This makes 0.08% of users out of a total number of 134,124 registered users.

Médiamétrie

A poll about internet traffic showed that Wikipedia was the 21st most visited website by French web surfers. 4,355,000 or 16% of the total have visited Wikipedia at least one time during June 2006. Wikipedia had the biggest growth of web traffic in 2005. At the beginning of year 2005 Wikipedia was in 137th position and by the end of the year Wikipedia landed in the 37th.

In the media

Since January 2006, there has been established a column about the French Wikipedia, called Wikifeuilleton in a weekly satirical newspaper called Le Tigre [3]. The columnist relates passionate debates which have occurred during 2006 in the Wikipedia, like the discussion about a dictator category or an incredible story of a sysop having about ten sock puppets.

Interview of scholars for Wikipedia

The portal of the zoological and botanical history (Portail:Histoire de la zoologie et de la botanique) has launched a new feature. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time that an interview is realised for Wikipedia. For the moment, one interview is available on the portal and three more are in the pipeline. The first of the series is an interview of Jean Lescure, an herpetologist working at the French national museum of natural history (first part and second part).

Linné and Buffon tercentenary

For the tercentenary of Buffon and Linnaeus, two well-known biologists, two projects have been set up (Projet:Buffon 2007 and Projet:Linné 2007). Valérie75, the Wikipedian behind these Wikiprojects, has two ambituous goals. First, make Wikipedia a reliable reference on this subject. Second, try to make some contacts with the scientific community. These two projects are progressing well. In a few days, Valérie75 is going to meet a French specialist of Buffon's work. We strongly encourage wikipedians to implement similar projects in their communities. Valérie75 would be happy to provide you with further details and advice.

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2006-08-07

News and notes

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By Flcelloguy

Call for candidates continues

The elections for the Board of Trustees continued this week with more Wikimedians declaring their candidacy. Potential candidates have until 28 August to sign-up. There are currently seven candidates: Arno Lagrange, Cerejota, Cimon Avaro, Improv, Kelly Martin, Linuxbeak, and Nicholas Turnbull. Several candidates, including Jeffrey Merkey (User:Gadugi), who is currently blocked on the English Wikipedia, also withdrew their candidacies this week.

Number of removed FAs reaches milestone

The number of featured articles to lose FA status reached a milestone last week. Wikipedia was de-featured on 2 August, making it the 200th former featured article. Articles are de-featured if they no longer meet the featured article criteria. Despite the featured article criteria gradually becoming more stringent, the number of featured articles has been rising inexorably since the status was created in January 2004 from the previous "Brilliant prose" page. There are now over 1,000 featured articles (the Signpost reported on the 1000th FA in June).

Proposed projects

Two projects were proposed this week: SpeedWiki, a place where advice on how to accomplish a certain task in a quick and efficient manner would be posted, and Wikibibliography. Wikibibliography aims to collect book and published information into one comprehensive reference and guide.

Logo votes close

Votes closed on proposed logos for both the Incubator Wiki and the Test Wiki. The vote for the Test Wiki logo resulted in a Wikipedia logo with inverted colors and "Test Wiki" underneath in red font. The Incubator vote, meanwhile, was for the variant of the "meddie egg" logo chosen in the previous vote. The horizontal variant of the logo was chosen.

Correction

Last week's issue erroneously reported that the Swahili Wikipedia was the first African-language Wikipedia to reach 1,000 articles. The Afrikaans Wikipedia has already reached over 1,000 articles. Afrikaans, while of Indo-European descent and considered a Low Franconian language, is a language spoken primarily in Africa. The Afrikaans Wikipedia currently has about 5,500 articles.

Briefly

The English Wikipedia has reached 1,300,000 articles.
The Indonesian Wikipedia has reached 29,000 articles.
The Marathi Wikipedia has reached 5,000 articles.
The Occitan Wikipedia has reached 3,000 articles.
Lingua Franca Nova, a non-Wikipedia Wikilexicon noted on Meta's List of Wikipedias page, has reached 500 articles. This makes it the 4th largest online lexicon of any planned language.
The Min Nan Wiktionary has reached 2,000 articles.
The Georgian Wikipedia has reached 9,000 articles.
The Belarussian Wikipedia has reached 4,000 articles.
The Kannada Wikipedia has reached 3,000 articles.
The Norwegian Wikipedia has reached 70,000 articles.
The Sundanese Wikipedia has reached 1,000 articles.
The Portuguese Wikiquote has reached 3,000 articles.
The Lombard Wikipedia has reached 1,000 articles.

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2006-08-07

In the news

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By Michael Snow, and Carmelapple

Wikimania continued to prompt advance coverage from the media. The Detroit Free Press characterized the goal of the conference as "A more consistent—but still cool—site". Interviewed for the article were two local contributors, Michael Karazim and Larry Kestenbaum, who discussed using Wikipedia as a reference and dealing with vandalism. The paper also pulled factoids from various Wikipedia entries related to Michigan. Observing that relying on paid editors could not have kept up with the pace of change under the Wikipedia model, Kestenbaum commented, "It's still impossible. But it's less impossible."

In New Hampshire, the Nashua Telegraph ran a column on Wednesday by reporter David Brooks (who is also a Wikipedia editor, one of the first in the state). Starting with a discussion of the paradoxical Wikipedia:Ignore all rules, he covered the debate over Wikipedia quality, balancing its growth and success against various points of failure.

Wales to upgrade quality of Wiki

Many reports (here PCWorld, here allheadlinenews.com) covered the announcement by Jimmy Wales at Wikimania that the English Wikipedia would focus on quality of articles over the next year rather than quantity, as the English Wikipedia is nearing 1.3 million articles. He also said he would be building a more formal advisory board, to help control Wikipedia's article quality issues.

Wales also said that he is keen to upgrade Wikipedia's humanities coverage, which will be upgraded by good quality art editors.

Wikipedia watching Shays and other rep. articles

The United States House of Representatives IP was temporarily banned from editing Wikipedia after it was determined that some edits to the article on U.S. Representative Christopher Shays had been subjected to vandalism.

According to Wikinews report on 2 February, "all mention" of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act by Shays and Rep. Marty Meehan and a paragraph about Shays raising $70,000 with House Speaker Dennis Hastert at a country club event had been removed. Consequently, the House IP address was blocked from the site for eight hours on 1 February.

A spokeswoman said the information was put back on Wikipedia later, and Shays told staff not to alter his biography. Wikipedia spokesman Wayne Saewyc said that editors are currently watching the articles for any more cases of vandalism.

Other coverage

The Boston Phoenix ran a story on Wikimania 2006 in the form of a diary.
ZDNet News ran a story about Lawrence Lessig's talk at Wikimania, in which he cited Wikipedia as an example of the "read-write" culture.
The Daily Tech ran a story about the offline version of Wikipedia available on $100 laptops (see related story).
A story was released from Digitaldivide about the new laptop partnership and Yochai Benkler's talk at Wikimania.
Globe and Mail Canada, published a story about User:SimonP, a Canadian from Ottawa who has more edits to the project than any non-bot contributor.
The Daily Telegraph ran a story on how Wikipedia was started.

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2006-08-07

Features and admins

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By RoyBoy and Ian Manka

Administrators

Four users were granted admin status last week: Wickethewok (nom), Phaedriel (nom), Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington (nom) and Crazycomputers (nom). Phaedriel's nomination received a record 271 support votes, breaking CSCWEM's record of 246 support votes. Phaedriel and CSCWEM are the only two RfAs that are in WP:200.

Also of note was Ambuj.Saxena's failed RfA, which garnered over 100 support votes, but eventually failed due to the lack of consensus. Ambuj.Saxena is the third user to have an RfA supported by over 100 users, yet fail to be promoted to admin status, joining CSCWEM's first nomination, and Rob Church's fourth nomination.

Featured content

Fifteen articles were featured last week: Fifteen articles were featured last week: Emu (nom), Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (nom), Battle of Bicocca (nom), John Brooke-Little (nom), Battle of Rennell Island (nom), Llywelyn the Great (nom), Final Fantasy VIII (nom), The Philadelphia Inquirer (nom), AK-47 (nom), Final Fantasy VI (nom), Gregorian chant (nom), Countdown (game show) (nom), Rudolf Vrba (nom), Selena (nom) and Caroline Island (nom).

Three articles were de-featured last week: Wikipedia, Lord Chancellor and Cyclone Tracy.

The latest portals to reach featured status are Portal:Numismatics and Portal:United States.

Four lists reached featured list status last week: List of vegetable oils, List of Testudines families, 2005 NCAA Division I-A football rankings and List of South America tropical cyclones.

The following featured articles were displayed last week on the main page as Today's featured article: Thrasybulus, Knights of Columbus, Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Damon Hill, Music of the United States, Ubuntu and Azerbaijani people.

These were the pictures of the day last week: Mount Hood, Machu Picchu, Digital art, London Eye, Great Dividing Range, Graz and Cyclone Gafilo.

Nine pictures reached featured picture status last week:

One picture was de-featured last week: Tarawet.

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2006-08-07

The Report On Lengthy Litigation

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By David Mestel

The Arbitration Committee did not open or close any cases this week.

Evidence phase

Zer0faults: A case involving the actions of Zer0faults and Nescio on Template:War on Terrorism, War on Terror and related arguments. Nescio alleges that Zer0faults has engaged in violation of WP:POINT, disruptive editing, and "uncivil remarks". In return, Zer0fault alleges that Nescio has failed to assume good faith, violated WP:POINT and WP:RS, and failed to provide explanations for his reverts.

Intangible: A case involving the actions of Intangible. Cberlet alleges that Intangible has used an "aggressive and confrontational" editing style to push his POV (partly through the wholesale deletion of the term "far right" from numerous pages), making sweeping edits and reverts with little or no discussion, and being "contentious and confrontational" in talk page discussions. Intangible vigorously denies the allegations.

CoolKatt number 99999: A case involving the actions of CoolKatt number 99999 on WWOR-TV and related articles, as well as the actions of Crossmr, Kramden4700 and others. Rollosmokes and others allege that CoolKatt has violated WP:POINT, WP:OWN, and WP:NLT. They also allege that he has made unfounded allegations of sockpuppetry and vandalism against themselves and other users. In response, CoolKatt denies the allegations, describing them as "slander" and "Wiki-stalking". He also accuses Crossmr of incivility, and alleges that Kramden4700 has vandalised the WWCP-TV article, and that Rekarb Bob and Buckner 1986 are sockpuppets of Kramden4700. A temporary injunction has been proposed and enacted, which bans CoolKatt from editing pages other than his own user pages and the arbitration pages for the duration of the case.

Voting phase

Ericsaindon2: A case involving the actions of Ericsaindon2, Coolcaesar and Will Beback. Coolcaesar claims that Ericsaindon2 has tried to insert original research, has disrupted Wikipedia, used sockpuppets, uploaded images violating copyright law, and failed to assume good faith. In response, Ericsaindon2 claims that Coolcaeser has contributed equally to the dispute, and that Will Beback has misused admin powers, in particular with incorrect and biased application of the 3RR. Fred Bauder has proposed remedies limiting Ericsaindon to one account, placing him on probation, and banning him for one year. No other arbitrators have yet voted on these proposals.

Heqong: A case (formerly referred to as Chiang Kai-shek) involving the actions of Heqong (formerly Chiang Kai-shek) on China and Taiwan-related articles. Fred Bauder has proposed remedies placing Heqong on personal attack parole and probation, and banning him for one month for personal attacks. No other arbitrators have yet voted on these proposals.

His excellency: A case involving the actions of His excellency. The case involves the actions of His excellency on Islam-related talk pages. Remedies banning His excellency for four months and placing him on personal attack parole have attracted the support of two arbitrators, as has one permitting the use of "traditional Muslim usages" such as "Salem, brother" on talk pages, so long as they do not create a hostile atmosphere for non-Muslims. Consensus has not yet been reached on other proposed remedies.

Sathya Sai Baba: A case involving Andries and SSS108's actions on the article Sathya Sai Baba. Both have accused each other of "POV pushing", and violating Wikipedia's policy on original research. Fred Bauder has proposed remedies to the effect that the set of articles dealing with Sathya Sai Baba be merged into one or two articles, that unsourced information be removed from these, that on the application of Sathya Sai Baba or a representative (SSS108 is specifically named as acceptable for this), the main article, as well as any related articles, may be deleted by any administrator and replaced with a stub, in order to remove "poorly sourced negative information" from the articles' histories, as well as a complete amnesty for Andries and SSS108 for any unreliable information they may have added in the past. However, no other arbitrators have yet voted on these proposals.

Eternal Equinox: A case involving Eternal Equinox. Several users complained that Eternal Equinox has been trying to claim ownership of articles with edit wars and abuse directed at those who try to edit them. Eternal Equinox claimed to have left Wikipedia, but the other parties argued that this was not credible because of a number of similar statements made previously. Eternal Equinox has since returned, editing anonymously from several related IP addresses while acknowledging his or her identity. Remedies have been proposed to the effect that Eternal Equinox is placed on probation and personal attack parole for one year, and Jim62sch is "cautioned to avoid teasing or taunting sensitive users". All these proposals have so far attracted the support of two arbitrators; other remedies are split.

Israeli apartheid: A case involving the actions of editors and administrators on Allegations of Israeli apartheid (formerly at Israeli apartheid). The article was the site of a move war during a poll to determine the article's naming. Fred Bauder has proposed findings of fact to the effect that "Israeli apartheid" is as a title inherently POV, but that Wikipedia as a whole has a slight pro-Israeli bias towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He has also proposed remedies to the effect that: editors to the article are directed to engage in good-faith negotiation, or, if it fails, mediation, to determine an acceptable title; all administrators involved in the matter are admonished not to use their admin tools without prior discussion, and five named administrators are reminded to make more use of dispute resolution procedures; and editors involved in the dispute are granted amnesty for past actions, except for Zeq, who remains banned from editing the article. However, no other arbitrators have yet voted on the proposals.

Hunger: A case involving a dispute about articles related to The Hunger Project. One of the parties, Jcoonrod, identifies himself as John Coonrod, an executive with that organization. The dispute has been in mediation about how and whether to include unflattering material about the organization in the article. Fred Bauder has presented voting measures, including findings of fact relating to the dispute and remedies to the effect that the articles on The Hunger Project and Joan Holmes (a related article) may on the motion of Jcoonrod be deleted and replaced with stubs, but the remedies do not include any sanctions for any editors. No other arbitrators have yet voted on the proposals.

Alienus: A case involving Alienus. Users Tony Sidaway, Nandesuka, and Jossi have presented evidence in the case, noting that Alienus has been blocked 15 times, has assumed bad faith, and has been warned many times about making personal attacks, edit warring, and incivility. A measure to ban Alienus for a year for edit warring and personal attacks has the support of three arbitrators.

Añoranza: A case involving Añoranza. Users asserted that Añoranza had been incivil, and had filed a retaliatory request for comment and request for checkuser. The dispute involves the usage of terms such as "Operation Iraqi Liberation" for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Remedies banning Añoranza for a week for the disruptive way in which he went about bringing the terms to light and encouraging the parties to enter into good-faith negotiations into the matter have the support of two arbitrators; other remedies are split.

8bitJake: A case involving 8bitJake. badlydrawnjeff, the initiator of the arbitration request, has asserted that 8bitJake's editing on political articles was biased, and that 8bitJake was incivil to other editors on the articles. Remedies brought by Fred Bauder, and not yet voted on by other members, would place 8bitJake and related editors on probation and ban them from articles relating to the politics of the State of Washington.

Dionyseus: A case involving Dionyseus and Danny Pi, and their actions on Veselin Topalov, an article on a Bulgarian chess player accused of cheating. Remedies brought by Fred Bauder and supported by SimonP, would ban Danielpi for a week for "discourtesy and personal attacks".

Motion to close

Iloveminun: A case brought against Minun. Evidence presented asserted that Minun and various sockpuppets violated fair use and image deletion policies by uploading copyrighted images and removing tags. If closed, remedies supported by six arbitrators limiting Minun to one account, banning him for a year for various actions (with all bans running consecutively), and placing him on probation, personal attack parole, and revert parole.

Moby Dick: A case brought against Moby Dick. Administrators Tony Sidaway, Bishonen, and MONGO have alleged that Moby Dick is a sockpuppet of Davenbelle, violating previous arbitration rulings in his political edits and his relations with Cool Cat. Seven arbitrators supported banning Moby Dick from Turkish and Kurdish-related articles, and five (with no dissent) supported allowing Moby Dick to be blocked for harassing Cool Cat or Megaman Zero.

Pudgenet: A case brought against Pudgenet, involving a dispute between Pudgenet and -Barry-. The dispute involved pages relating to Perl, as well as Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles. If closed, Barry would be banned indefinitely from editing Perl and its talk page, all parties would be warned, and Pudgenet placed on personal attack parole, and, by a majority of five to three, Probation for one year.

Irishpunktom: A case involving Irishpunktom, Karl Meier, and Dbiv. Measures to ban Irishpunktom and Dbiv from editing Peter Tatchell for one year, place Irishpunktom and Karl Meier on probation for one year, place Irishpunktom on one revert per article per week parole and place Dbiv on administrative parole for one year have the support of eight arbitrators. However, Fred Bauder has opposed the motion to close, citing an edit to the proposed decision page which has been confirmed by checkuser to be Dbiv. As a result of this, Bauder feels that the remedies for Dbiv may need to be reconsidered.

Saladin1970: A case involving an appeal of Saladin1970's indefinite block originally placed by Jayjg, and later by SlimVirgin. If closed, remedies (supported mostly by six arbitrators) include banning Saladin1970 for 2 years, and placing him on probation, general probation, and personal attack parole.

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