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2007-01-15

Special: 2006 in Review, Part II

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By Ral315
Part I of the series can be viewed here.

Just two weeks ago marked the end of 2006, and the end of the biggest year Wikipedia has seen, in terms of growth, press coverage, and quality. During last year, the English Wikipedia grew from less than 900,000[1] to over 1,500,000[2] articles. It began with elections for the Arbitration Committee and stewardship, and ended with elections for the Arbitration Committee and stewardship. This week, the Wikipedia Signpost continues our look back at the year that was 2006 in Wikipedia.

Arbitration Committee Elections

Due to a scheduling quirk, 2006 saw two annual Arbitration Committee elections. The January elections saw 11 arbitrators elected in all (originally, 8 seats were up for reelection, but to avoid high turnover on the Committee, and with a high rate of community support, Jimbo Wales chose to add three extra seats). In all, 68 candidates applied for the elections; of these, 14 withdrew during the vote.

All but one incumbent arbitrator regained a seat on the Committee (Kelly Martin withdrew from consideration early in the vote and resigned from the committee shortly thereafter, citing personal reasons.)[3]

In December, a second election was held. In this election, the five three-year seats in Tranche Gamma were available; with the resignation of Mindspillage, who took a seat on the Foundation Board of Trustees, and the absence of Filiocht, who had not participated in arbitration due to illness, two additional two-year seats were made available. Jimbo indicated that Mindspillage and Filiocht were free to claim extra seats should they come back before their terms were due to expire in December 2008.[4] 37 candidates ran for the seats, of which 6 withdrew during the elections. The results were as follows:

Of the previous Tranche Gamma, one seat was vacant due to the resignation of Mackensen in February.[5] None of the four remaining incumbent arbitrators chose to run again. This was the first time in the Arbitration Committee's history that no incumbents attempted to defend their seats.

Steward elections

Oddly enough, two annual elections were also held for the global position of steward. Stewards' main jobs are to help out with the jobs of bureaucrats and CheckUsers on smaller wikis, where bureaucrats are unlikely to be active or existent, and CheckUser policies have not yet been agreed upon (only 27 individual projects, along with Wikimedia Commons and the Meta-Wiki, currently have CheckUsers).[6] While the Board of Trustees makes a final ruling on the suitability of a candidate, and can pick any candidates with at least 80% support and at least 30 support votes to become stewards, their decision in both 2006 elections was to promote all candidates who had received 80% or more.

In January 2006's elections, nine candidates were chosen: Ascánder, Ausir, Jean-Christophe Chazalette, Jon Harald Søby, Paginazero, Rdsmith4, Romihaitza, Suisui, and Walter.[7] Of the nine, two (Jean-Christophe Chazalette and Ascánder) have since resigned.

In December 2006's elections, eleven candidates were chosen: Bastique, Cspurrier, Darkoneko, Dbl2010, Drini, Effeietsanders, Guillom, M7, MaxSem, Pathoschild, Redux, and Shanel.[8]

CheckUser and Oversight

In 2006, two new user classifications became widely used: CheckUser and Oversight. CheckUser, which was actually introduced as a formal classification in 2005, is the ability to view and compare the IP addresses of contributors when it is presumed that these users might be involved in sockpuppeting or disruption. The requests for CheckUser page, created in January 2006, has become a key site to visit by users who suspect that sockpuppeting might be occurring.[9] Oversight, meanwhile, is the ability to hide page revisions containing libel, personal informations and in extreme cases, copyright violations; it was introduced in June after the insertion of inappropriate content, particularly on busy pages like the administrators' noticeboard, where deletions caused undue stress on the servers, due to the number of revisions involved.[10] There were 17 users with oversight privileges when it was introduced; there are currently 28 users with these privileges.

Userboxes

A source of controversy in early 2006 was a series of disputes over userboxes. Introduced to the English Wikipedia in late March, 2005, as a way of communicating to other users the languages that a user speaks, userboxes soon became a way to express one's likes and dislikes, talents, and even edit counts. Controversy erupted in late December 2005 when Kelly Martin began deleting userboxes that she deemed controversial or offensive, and those that contained fair use images; two requests for comment were filed in the case.[11]

More controversy occurred when a pro-pedophilia userbox ignited a wheel war. Jimbo Wales temporarily de-sysopped five of the administrators who had been most involved in escalating the situation.[12] An arbitration case was hastily brought in the matter, and just five days after the case was opened, it was closed with the following remedies:

  • El C was resysopped immediately and reprimanded.
  • BorgHunter was resysopped after two days, and reprimanded.
  • Ashibaka was resysopped after two weeks.
  • Karmafist and Carnildo did not have their sysop powers restored. Rather interestingly, Carnildo regained adminship in September, in a controversial decision by bureaucrats,[13] while Karmafist was eventually banned from the site.
  • Dschor, who created another, inflammatory version of the pedophilia template, was banned for two months (in May, he was indefinitely blocked for "massive sockpuppetry" by Mackensen).
  • SPUI, who created a joke version of the template, was banned for ten days, and placed on probation.
  • Paroxysm, who created the original template "in good faith", according to the Committee, was banned for three days and prohibited from editing userboxes again. Paroxysm has not edited under that username since March, but has edited under other usernames.

The case was the fastest arbitration case to close with remedies enacted. Although an April arbitration case involving userboxes was filed, and resulted in the desysopping of Guanaco, most of the controversy over userboxes has since faded, as most have been moved from the template namespace into user subpages. Divisive or inflammatory userboxes are rarely seen anymore, and can be speedy deleted under criterion T1.

Other involuntary desysoppings

Through 2005, only five users had been permanently desysopped. 11 users were permanently desysopped in 2006; other than Karmafist and Carnildo, the others are:

  • Everyking, de-adminned in September 2006 after offering to post a page revision containing personal information to a Wikipedia criticism site. Dmcdevit said for the Arbitration Committee:
"Recently it was brought to the attention of the Arbitration Committee that administrator Everyking has posted to an external site in the process of trying to determine the contents of inappropriate material, sensitive personal information, deleted from an article. Everyking looked up the deleted material using his administrator privileges, and offered to post the deleted content publicly...We view this as a serious misjudgment and a betrayal of the trust the community has given him in adminship. As such, Everyking has been immediately desysopped."
Everyking replied:
"This is shocking and I call for it to be overturned. I didn't actually post anything (being worried that SlimVirgin might get pissed) and even if I did I don't see how it could be a betrayal of anything."
When Dmcdevit mentioned his willingness to post personal information as a "liability", Everyking replied:
"Personal information? I didn't even know what the content was. I still don't know. I sure as hell would never post anybody's personal information."

In closing...

2006 was the biggest year Wikipedia has seen in terms of overall progress and growth. It's likely that 2007 will be even bigger, busier and more bustling. Thanks for editing Wikipedia, and thanks for reading the Signpost.

Links/references

  1. ^ Ral315. "News and notes", 9 January, 2006
  2. ^ Flcelloguy. "News and notes", 27 November, 2006
  3. ^ Flcelloguy. "Jimbo Wales appoints 11 arbitrators, increases committee size", 23 January, 2006
  4. ^ Ral315. "Seven arbitrators chosen", 26 December, 2006
  5. ^ Ral315 and Michael Snow. "Arbitrator Mackensen resigns", 20 February, 2006
  6. ^ CheckUser policy, Meta-Wiki
  7. ^ Flcelloguy. "Nine stewards elected", 16 January, 2006
  8. ^ Flcelloguy. "News and notes", 26 December, 2006
  9. ^ Flcelloguy, Ral315 and Wikizach. "News and notes", 16 January, 2006
  10. ^ Ral315. "New revision-hiding feature added", 5 June, 2006
  11. ^ Flcelloguy and Ral315. "News and notes", 2 January, 2006
  12. ^ Flcelloguy. "Five users de-sysopped by Jimbo Wales", 6 February, 2006
  13. ^ Ral315. "Carnildo resysopped", 11 September, 2006
  14. ^ Ral315. "Arbitration report", 13 February, 2006
  15. ^ Ral315. "Arbitration report", 17 April, 2006
  16. ^ Ral315. "Administrator desysopped after sockpuppeting incident", 12 June, 2006
  17. ^ Ral315. "Arbitration report", 21 August, 2006
  18. ^ David Mestel. "Arbitration report", 23 October, 2006
  19. ^ David Mestel. "Arbitration report", 18 December, 2006



Reader comments

2007-01-15

New arbitrators interviewed

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By Ral315
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In December, Jimbo Wales announced the election of seven users to the Arbitration Committee: Blnguyen, Flcelloguy, FloNight, Jpgordon, Kirill Lokshin, Paul August, and UninvitedCompany. This week, the Signpost interviews the newly elected arbitrators, after just over two weeks on the job, to see how arbitration is coming along:

1. How do you feel about getting the opportunity to serve on the ArbCom?

Blnguyen (BLN): I feel honoured and surprised to be appointed. Also, it is a large responsibility, so it makes me more conscious of my actions.
Flcelloguy (FL): I am honored to have this opportunity and great responsibility, and hope to serve well.
FloNight (FN): I am delighted and honored to have the trust of the community for this important position.
Jpgordon (JP): Grateful for the trust that's been put in me; apprehensive about the scope of the real work ahead.
Kirill Lokshin (KL): Honored and grateful.
Paul August (PA): I feel both honored and the weight of responsibility.
UninvitedCompany (UC): It is, at the same time, an honor and a huge responsibility.

2. What do you think of the election? Do you think they were conducted properly? What could have been improved, in your opinion?

BLN: I thought they were conducted properly according to what was agreed beforehand, and given the system which we have at our disposal, it's surprising and very pleasing that distasteful practices were much less widespread than they could be, which is a credit to the community and something to be proud of. Aside from the unregulatable phenomena of negative campaigning, one thing which I feel can be remedied is that of people posting misleading and false statements in oppose votes to generate negative momentum and scare off the electorate (eg, of pushing POV on articles the candidate did not edit, organising sockpuppets, etc). I personally feel that having a system where the voter submissions are made invisible until after the voting period would make this tactic mostly obsolete.
FL: In general, I think it ran extremely smoothly, even though there were a few "bumps" along the road. It was an improvement over last year's elections, when I remember moving all the voting and candidate subpages to a standardized form less than 24 hours before the voting, which had already been delayed for weeks, was to start. Thanks to everyone who helped, asked questions, and expressed their opinions by voting, the election was a success.
FN: Overall I think the election was well run. I'm a little concerned about the small number of female candidates. I believe that there is one less female on ArbCom now.
JP: Seems to me they went smoothly; at least, I didn't notice any glitches that mattered.
KL: It seemed to go as well as might be expected. There were a few unpleasant incidents, admittedly, but they're probably unavoidable in any open system.
PA: The elections went more or less smoothly. There was some negative campaigning which I thought was unhelpful.
UC: I continue to believe that the project would be better served by an election process based on a secret ballot. I think that the open voting leads to unnecessary WikiDrama. I have believed for some time that the RFA process is due for review, and have started Wikipedia:WikiProject on Adminship to that end. Using an RFA-like voting process for the arbitration committee, while having the benefit of familiarity, poses many of the same problems RFA itself does.

3. What would you say to those who supported you? Opposed you?

BLN: I hope that I can fulfil the expectations of those who supported me. I thank the opposers for being frank and giving me a piece of their mind, as a more comprehensive understanding of community sentiment can only help yield better results. I hope I can allay the concerns as to my suitability via my performance, and people are welcome to give me feedback, advice or criticism very liberally on my talk page or privately, especially if they did not give an explicit reason for their opposition.
FL: I thank those who expressed confidence in me, and also thank those who opposed for taking time to give their honest feedback and opinion. For those who supported, I hope that I will meet - and even exceed - all of your expectations, and for those who opposed, I hope I will improve in those aspects you pointed out. I also appreciate everyone leaving comments and suggestions in their votes; I have read those and will take those suggestions seriously.
FN: I ask them to give me positive and negative feedback so I can do this job in a way that reflects the desire of the overall community.
JP: I hope I can perform to my supporters' expectations. Those who opposed me mostly had good reasons, and hopefully some will find their opposition unfounded.
KL: I hope to fulfill the expectations of everyone who voted.
PA: I think most voted responsibly and deserve everyone's thanks for participating.
UC: I would like to thank everyone who voted. I am going to do my very best to avoid having the votes, pro or con, affect my feelings about any user who chose to vote.

4. What do you think of the other Wikipedians who were appointed along with you?

BLN: I have never worked with any of them previously, but I have observed them in action from afar over the last year and have been extremely impressed by and respect them for their judgment, maturity, article contributions, organisational skills, work ethic and wisdom. I think the elections produced a very good result.
FL: Wikipedia is lucky to have so many great, intelligent, and reasonable people willing to serve, and I look forward to working with all of the ArbCom.
FN: I'm just getting to know some of them for the first time. Having Wikipedian with a variety of different editing backgrounds and skills sets should serve the community well.
JP: They're an interesting and pleasant mix of personalities and opinions.
KL: We have a very good group of new appointees; I have nothing but the highest respect for all of them.
PA: I really don't know most of them very well yet. I'm sure they are all good folks.
UC: I believe that we are fortunate to have elected and appointed an excellent group of people, in spite of using an election process with many flaws.

5. After about two weeks on the job, what are your initial thoughts?

BLN: It seems like a large responsibility and a lot of work, especially because of the changeover, but I am confident that it will smooth out over time.
FL: It's been extremely hectic (but interesting), and things have been extremely complicated. There has been no shortage of opinions on our mailing list on a few issues, and the emails keep on flowing in. However, throughout all of this it strikes me that there are so many great people on the Committee, all of us working together for the best interest of the project.
FN: The committee is dealing with some tough cases now. Overall I am pleased with the way the old and new members are working together to solve the community's concerns.
JP: Theres some messy stuff out here. Encyclopedias are easy; people are hard.
KL: It's a lot of work, but interesting enough to make up for it.
PA: It's a difficult job.
UC: I've been reflecting on the diverse nature of the arbcom. All the people who are involved care deeply, very deeply, about Wikipedia and its sister projects. Yet we have widely varying biases and approach problems in differing ways. I think that's one of our strengths. I've also been pondering the best way to improve the overall collaboration environment at Wikipedia. Some cases are better vehicles to serve as a catalyst for change than others.

6. How active a role do you plan to take on ArbCom workshop pages, and in writing ArbCom decisions, a role that has historically been handled mostly by just a few individuals?

BLN: I do think that the workshop pages can be useful, so I intend to use them perhaps more than has been done historically, as I think it's useful to have discussion prior to the final decision. I do intend to help write the decisions on the new cases.
FL: As I promised during the elections, I will do my best to assist in this area, although as of now I'm still "getting my feet wet", as the saying goes. (We also haven't accepted any cases since the election, an odd coincidence that is allowing me to examine the current cases - in which we're all automatically recused - with great detail.)
FN: I plan to do my share of writing ArbCom decisions. I was familiar wilth many of the open cases from my work as a clerk, so I started voting on those first that already were written. In the past, I commented on Workshop pages and will continue to do so in the future.
JP: I'm thinking I'll be fairly active; it's the public face of ArbCom, which appeals to me.
KL: I'm hoping to take a quite active role in that aspect of the process.
PA: I intend to contribute wherever I will be most useful, but I hope to be active in all areas.
UC: I believe that my early involvement in these areas speaks for itself.

7. What do you think are the strengths of the ArbCom? Weaknesses?

BLN: I think that the strengths are mainly diverse representation as well as the community and arbitrators viewing its role seriously and thus examining things comprehensively to try and get the most effective solution. Speed is often a problem, mainly due to slow processing.
FL: The main strength is having so many dedicated people collaborating to find a way forward; however, this is also the primary weakness, as the abundance of opinions may sometimes lead to delays and standstills.
FN: A strength is that the members of the committee all have the community's best interest in mind and take their work seriously. A weakness is that cases are slow to finish sometimes when there is very little left to do on the case.
JP: Too soon to tell.
KL: The ArbCom is made up of people with a diversity of views; this is a great strength, but is also the cause of much of the delay in the process.
PA: Too soon to say.
UC: I think its strengths include fair process and community support. Its weaknesses include an inherently slow decisionmaking system.

8. If you could change anything, what would you change? Why?

BLN: As far as the arbitration process goes, it's too early to tell.
FL: To quote Dmcdevit, "Hunger, poverty, war... Oh, about arbcom you mean?" It's too early, though, for me to make a meaningful suggestion at this point, although I would probably advocate changes expediting the process and making it less bureaucratic.
FN: Nothing so far. The new committee needs time to settle in before we make changes, I think. Having a clerk or ArbCom member keep watch on a case and more aggressively push it towards completion might be helpful.
JP: Mm-mm. I'm not falling for THAT one again!
KL: Too soon to say, I think.
PA: I can't think of anything specific I would change just yet.
UC: At this point, I am unconvinced that I'm smart enough to make a change that would be sure to improve things. I believe I'll make some suggestions on how we write up cases, and on ways to speed up the process, over the coming months.

9. Do you plan on finishing your term? If you had to make a choice right now, when your term expires, would you run for re-election? Why or why not?

BLN: I do intend on finishing my term, and am not thinking about the December 2008 election.
FL: Yes, I do plan on finishing the term; I've made the commitment, and unless the situation changes in some drastic way, I intend to fulfill that commitment. It's also too early to tell what will happen in (a little bit less than) three years.
FN: Yes, I plan to finish my term. My term is for two years since I replaced Mindspillage making me more likely to run for re-election, I think. Otherwise, nothing has made me more or less likely to run again.
JP: I plan on finishing it. If I had to make a choice right now about running for re-election, I'd say "hell no", because I don't have adequate information with which to make such a commitment now. Two weeks on the job says nothing at all about what three years will feel like.
KL: I have every intention of staying on for my full term. As far as re-election goes, it's rather too early to say.
PA: I hope to finish my term. Three years is a long time. I would guess by then I will be ready to turn over the job to some one else.
UC: I do plan to finish my term. I have no comment regarding a possible re-election bid and do not anticipate that I will have any comment on such a possibility until the end of my current term approaches.

10. If there's one thing you could say to the Wikipedia community, what would you say, and why? Is there anything else you would like to mention?

BLN: I would like to say that irrespective of what "positions" anybody holds on Wikipedia, the objective of the project is to write quality encyclopedia articles. Thus, everybody is an editor, first and foremost, and everything else is secondary and should be geared towards this. I certainly think of myself first and foremost as an editor and hope that the community thinks in the same way also. I guess the saying "It does not matter who is right, but what is right" is relevant here, as it is the content the world sees which is important, and that we would become a lot more efficient in getting closer to our goal if disputes were not framed in terms of personality, politics, winning and losing, etc, even if it is unspoken and psychological. I don't think that there is room to be complacent about the future success and growth of Wikipedia and everybody should always be looking for improvement.
FL: You mean besides how familiar these questions are? In all seriousness, though, I would implore every Wikipedian here to keep in mind the spirit of the project. Whether you are an administrator, arbitrator, editor, writer, or janitor (or any combination of those, indeed), we are all here volunteering our time to improve this great project, dedicated to spreading free knowledge around the world. Conflicts will arise - that is inevitable. But what we can do is to treat all other people, especially other Wikipedians, with the greatest and utmost level of respect and politeness, and to assume good faith for everyone here. We're all here to write an encyclopedia, and though our methods may differ, our ultimate goal remains shared. Whether you are writing here on a wiki, or discussing on some other forum like IRC, please, please, remember to be courteous to everyone else, and to extend the same respect even to those who aren't currently present in the channel. Disagreement is fine, but disparagement is not. The next time you are involved with a heated debate, take a step back, and look at the situation. Take Essjay's creed and apply it, even when you are off-wiki; stop and smell the roses - look at the amazing progress we have gone through, and then think about the situation again. You are a Wikipedian. You can help us change and improve this project. You can be proud to be a true Wikipedian - civil, hardworking, and dedicated. Thank you.
FN: I would like to reiterate my delight at being chosen by the the community and Jimbo. Also I encourage Wikipedians, especially females, to think ahead to the next ArbCom election. Familiarize yourself with the committee policies and assist with the current cases. Hopefully this will give the community a broad base of quality candidates to choose from next year.
JP: Back in the days of FidoNet, the only two rules were "Don't be too annoying. Don't be too easily annoyed". It's a good way to live.
KL: I would prefer to interact with editors outside of my role as an Arbitrator; so please be nice to one another!
PA: I would like all of us to realize that wikipedia is not some giant internet adventure game, but serious work that effects the lives of millions of people throughout the world. And I would like us all to appreciate just how wonderful, unique and important that work is. We should all feel both a sense of pride and a sense of responsibility.
UC: Administrators are powerful. People in positions of power should treat those who are relatively less powerful with constant respect. It makes me cringe to see people being mean to others who are in weaker positions, whether on Wikipedia or in real life.



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2007-01-15

Cascading protection feature added

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By Michael Snow and Simetrical

A new software feature to guard against sophisticated "indirect" vandalism of the Main Page has been implemented. Dubbed "cascading protection", it automatically applies to local images and templates, which have been frequent targets for this type of vandalism.

As a very high-traffic page, the Main Page has long been an attractive target for vandals. Because it includes a constantly changing variety of elements, vulnerabilities have occasionally appeared when nobody thinks to protect a new element, or even an element of an element. The feature, which "cascades" the regular protection feature down to such elements, was developed primarily by Andrew Garrett (User:Werdna). Chief Technical Officer Brion Vibber enabled it in the MediaWiki software and applied cascading protection to the Main Page at 09:55 (UTC) on 14 January.

Cascading protection operates as follows: If a page is protected using the feature, any pages included in it will also be protected for as long as they remain included in it. This protection should take effect instantly and automatically even if templates are included dynamically by a mechanism such as that used by the Main Page. Administrators can enable cascading protection by means of a checkbox on the usual protection form.

Vibber pointed out that cascading protection does not apply to images hosted on the Wikimedia Commons. This means that the image will need to be protected manually by an administrator on the Commons project. In the first few months of that project, complaints were voiced about its responsiveness to such requests, but now the matter is handled fairly routinely.

ProtectionBot

The feature was developed while a separate effort was underway to run a bot that would achieve similar results. ProtectionBot, a bot run by Dragons flight, was the subject of a much-debated request for adminship, in order to obtain the administrator-only function of protecting and unprotecting pages. This followed a request for approval of bot status, which was generally supported, but it was suggested that the issue of a bot with administrator abilities needed to be brought before a wider audience.

Once the cascading protection feature had been added to MediaWiki, Dragons flight withdrew the request on 11 January. Although he said the bot "has certain functionality that exceeds that provided by Werdna's patch, I feel the technical situation has changed too greatly for this RFA to continue to be valid." Dragons flight expressed appreciation to Garrett and the other developers who helped address the problem, while also expressing frustration with the process. Reflecting on the energy devoted to getting the bot approved, he commented, "A good idea, that can be shown to work, should not require this much effort."

At the time the request was withdrawn, there was actually a decent possibility that it would have succeeded. Counts of supporting and opposing comments at the time of withdrawal showed 185 in favor and 41 opposing, with 13 neutral or abstaining comments. Weighing supporters against opponents would put 82% in favor, slightly above the 80% threshold that has commonly been treated by bureaucrats as justifying administrator status without controversy.

A substantial portion of the opposition expressed concern that the source code for the bot was not public. Dragons flight did share the code with a number of other Wikipedians, but declined to release it generally, stating that it could easily be modified to create a vandalbot. Others remained uncertain about giving a bot abilities normally reserved for administrators.

Garrett, who came up with the solution, was actually one of those opposing the request for adminship. In his opinion, "this kind of thing needs to be implemented as part of MediaWiki", along with some of the other functions filled by bots. Others pointed out that the small number of developers makes it difficult to hope that such features would be implemented unless something forces the issue.



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2007-01-15

WikiWorld comic: "Apples and Oranges"

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By Greg Williams

WikiWorld is a weekly comic, carried by the Signpost, that highlights a few of the fascinating but little-known articles in the vast Wikipedia archives. The text for each comic is excerpted from one or more existing Wikipedia articles. WikiWorld offers visual interpretations on a wide range of topics: offbeat cultural references and personality profiles, obscure moments in history and unlikely slices of everyday life - as well as "mainstream" subjects with humorous potential.

Cartoonist Greg Williams developed the WikiWorld project in cooperation with the Wikimedia Foundation, and is releasing the comics under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 license for use on Wikipedia and elsewhere. Williams works as a visual journalist for the US-based The Tampa Tribune, a daily newspaper in Tampa, Florida. He also has worked as an illustrator and designer at newspapers in Dubuque, Iowa, and Dayton, Ohio.


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2007-01-15

News and notes

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By Ral315

Wikimedia Foundation fundraiser passes $1,000,000

The Wikimedia Foundation fundraiser will conclude this week. At the end of the drive, over US$1,000,000 had been raised, not including a matching funds donation yet to be received.

Personal attack noticeboard rejected

After complaints over its effectiveness, and worries that it was being used inappropriately in disputes, the personal attack intervention noticeboard was shut down last week, after a deletion request.

Mailing lists moved

The mailing lists for Wikipedia and other projects have changed to new addresses after the Wikimedia Foundation migrated them to a new server. All new addresses will use @lists.wikipedia.org, so that for example the English Wikipedia mailing list is now wikien-l at lists.wikipedia.org. Old addresses will still work, but the transition will include mail headers and may require recipients to adjust any filters or other settings they use to read list messages. Also note that links to old mailing list messages may point to different ones now: this is because of how the archive rebuilding process works.

Briefly



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2007-01-15

In the news

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By Ral315

Sydney Morning Herald vandalizes Wikipedia

A blogger for the Sydney Morning Herald, in an article critical about Wikipedia, vandalized the article Newspaper, touting its own blog as the "world's best column" [1]. The edit was reverted nearly nine hours later by Barnabypage. The page also mentions a vandalous edit to Aspirin, which was not reverted for 28 minutes [2].

Ethical Corporation Magazine examines Corporate social responsibility

Mallen Baker of Ethical Corporation Magazine, a British publication, looked at Wikipedia's article on corporate social responsibility. The author notes that POV battles have made the article "a battleground of ideologues".

Reporter examines an AFD on his own article

CNET reporter Daniel Terdiman profiled an AFD on an article about Terdiman. Terdiman notes that compared to other CNET reporters, he might not have been notable, though the article was kept. Terdiman did, however, incorrectly refer to the AFD as an "administrators' delete-or-not thread".



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2007-01-15

Features and admins

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By Daniel.Bryant

Administrators

Five users were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: Kinu (nom), Feydey (nom), Visviva (nom), Jersyko (nom), and BigDT (nom).

Featured content

Twenty-two articles were promoted to featured status last week, following the previous week's zero: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), Oriel College, Scottish Parliament Building, Paulins Kill, Hurricane Juan, Christopher C. Kraft, Jr., Hippocrates, Germany, Laplace-Runge-Lenz vector, Sasha (DJ), B movie, South Australian legislative election, 2006, Pilot (House), Turkey, Battle of Edson's Ridge, DNA, Diplodocus, Proteasome, Effects of Hurricane Isabel in Delaware, Immune system, and Regulamentul Organic. DNA was repromoted to FA status after losing it nearly three years ago.

Two articles were de-featured last week: Names of God in Judaism, and Sydney Riot of 1879.

Five lists were promoted to featured status last week: Chicago Bears seasons, Harry Potter films cast members, New Brunswick general elections (post-Confederation), Basil cultivars, and Nintendo 64 games.

Two portals were promoted to featured status last week: Architecture and Vancouver.

The following featured articles were displayed last week on the Main Page as Today's featured article: Invasion, Fauna of Puerto Rico, Half-Life 2, Richard III, Alcibiades, Shoshone National Forest, and Kitsune.

The following featured pictures were displayed last week on the Main Page as picture of the day: Treasury of Athens, Riffle shuffle, Dragonfly, Root canal, Phenotypes, Victoria Crater, and Pennant coralfish.

Thirteen pictures were promoted to featured status last week:



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2007-01-15

Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

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By Simetrical

The ImageMap extension by Tim Starling has been enabled on Wikimedia sites. It is now possible for images to be easily used to link to pages, including with different areas linking to different pages. Users should remember to keep in mind the needs of browsers not capable of handling graphics well, such as screen readers and perhaps some handheld devices.

In response to the rise of indirect vandalism on the Main Page (see this Signpost article for further details), a new protection mode was added: cascading protection. If a page is protected this way, any pages included in it will also be protected for as long as they remain included in it. This protection should take effect instantly and automatically even if templates are included dynamically by a mechanism such as that used by the Main Page. Administrators can enable cascading protection by means of a checkbox on the usual protection form. (Andrew Garrett, various revisions from r18958 to r19103)

The {{PLURAL}} magic word now treats -1 as singular. (Leon Weber, r19031)

Tooltips and accesskey shortcuts no longer require JavaScript to use. Consequently, the way in which sysops should edit tooltips and accesskeys has changed. While it is possible to continue using the ta array in MediaWiki:monobook.js or MediaWiki:common.js, it is preferable to delete that and migrate any changes to the new individual messages such as MediaWiki:Tooltip-userpage. (Simetrical, bugs 5051 and 5376, r19036)

A minimum protection level for all pages in a given namespace can now be set in the site configuration. By default, the only namespace thus protected is the MediaWiki namespace, which, as before, is only editable by sysops. (Ilmari Karonen, r19110)

A bug that prevented non-sysops from viewing the source of system messages left at their default values, such as (at the time of this writing) MediaWiki:About on the English Wikipedia, was fixed. The bug was presumably a side effect of the recent removal of such default messages from the database. (Ilmari Karonen, r19111)

The contents of <math> tags, when rendered as plain HTML text rather than as an image, will now always be rendered left-to-right, even on right-to-left wikis. (Simetrical, bug 8002, r19143)

The page-specific CSS class now works consistently in Monobook and non-Monobook skins. (Mormegil, bug 8643, r19299)

JavaScript authors should be aware that recently, a minor change to the document structure was made for consistency, related specifically to handheld rendering: a div with class of pBody was wrapped around the unordered list in p-cactions, to bring it in line with the other lists there. This will cause issues for some inflexibly-written JavaScript that depends on the precise document structure. JavaScript authors are advised to write their scripts so that they will continue to function even if wrappers are added or node order changes. For instance, the <ul> element containing the content actions can be obtained with document.getElementById("p-cactions").getElementsByTagName("ul")[0];, which will almost certainly work despite any structural change. (Simetrical, r18949)

Also, a new utility function was added for the benefit of JavaScript authors. addPortletLink() will conveniently add a link to any of the "portlets" in Monobook, including the content actions, personal tools, navigation sidebar, and toolbox. The syntax of the function can be found in wikibits.js. (Ilmari Karonen, r19185)

A number of interface changes were made:

  • The "undo" link on diffs now shows a diff demonstrating what changes will be made to the current page rather than simply showing an edit form. This is equivalent to clicking the "Show changes" button. Also, the message explaining what happened was clarified. (Andrew Garrett, r18907–8)
  • All interface messages now show the correct tooltip prefix for the user's browser, provided JavaScript is enabled. For instance, the tooltip for "Save page" will now read "[shift-alt-s]" for users of Firefox 2.0, not "alt-s". (Simetrical, r19036)
  • When viewing the difference between two revisions, users can choose via a user preference not to have the full text of the latter revision output below the differences. This should noticeably improve the time it takes to display diffs of large pages. Adding &diffonly=0 or &diffonly=1 to the end of a diff URL will display or hide the revision text regardless of user preferences, respectively. (Ilmari Karonen, bug 3446, r19141)
  • On user pages, the "user contributions" link will show up red if the user has no edits. (Leon Weber, r19219, 20, 22))
  • When printing, the user's browser font size preference will be used, rather than the text being forced to 11 points. (Simetrical, r19221)
  • A link back to the list of deleted revisions for a page is now provided on the undelete revision preview page. (Rob Church, bug 7842, r19258)
  • The block form now contains links to the unblock page and the block list. (Rob Church, bugs 8619 and 8628, r19259 and r19287)
  • Users with appropriate permissions will now see a deletion link for each entry on Special:Brokenredirects. (Rob Church, bug 8522, r19262)

Some updates were made to non-English messages, specifically:

Internationalization help is always appreciated! See m:Localization statistics for how complete the translations of languages you know are, and post any updates to Mediazilla.



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2007-01-15

The Report on Lengthy Litigation

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By David Mestel

The Arbitration Committee opened no cases this week, and closed one case.

Closed case

Evidence phase

  • Piotrus-Ghirla: A case involving the actions of Piotrus and Ghirla on various Russia- and Poland-related articles. Piotrus alleges that Ghirla has added unsourced POV material to these articles, and generally been incivil, while Ghirla claims that Piotrus has engaged in various forms of harassment, and calls for his desysopping. However, the parties have now entered into informal mediation, with proposals including mutual civility parole (and in which Ghirla has dropped his call for desysopping), and as a result of this, a motion has been proposed temporarily deferring the case until the outcome of the mediation is known.
  • Starwood: A case involving links to Starwood Festival-related articles from various pages. Paul Pigman, who brought the case, alleges that Rosencomet "persistently and systematically" added these links, perhaps to an extent that violates WP:SPAM, and that Hanuman Das, Ekajati and 999 have harassed users attempting to remove the links. Mattisse confirms that she has been harassed by Hanuman Das, Ekajati and 999, but that she has no issue of harassment with Rosencomet himself. Hanuman Das has asked that his name be removed from the request, as "I decline to participate", citing that he has not edited the links since he agreed not to on the 5th of December. Although Arbitration is not a consensual process, he also seems to have exercised the right to vanish. 999 and Ekajati deny the allegations, and allege that Mattisse has used multiple sockpuppets to request the links and then call for their removal. In addition, various users allege that Rosencomet has a WP:COI, as the executive director of the for-profit ACE LLC, which promotes the festival.
  • Robert Prechter: A case regarding the behaviour of Rgfolsom and Smallbones on the Socionomics and Robert Prechter pages. Rgfolsom alleges that Smallbones has violated WP:NPOV, WP:CIVIL and WP:DR (by abusing the mediation process), and that he has added "smears, demonstrable falsehoods, and a calculated overemphasis on quotes of critics". In response, Smallbones alleges that Rgfolsom has violated WP:V and WP:NPOV by removing claims critical of Prechter, and adding claims complimentary to him, and WP:COI because he is one of Prechter's employees.

Voting phase

  • Husnock: A case involving the actions of Husnock and Morwen, involving a comment made by Husnock, "I would be careful telling a deployed member of the military they shouldn't edit on Wikipedia for whatever reason.", following disputes on various Star Trek-related AfDs, which Morwen considered to be "intimidating", and Husnock alleges that she stated that she was "in fear of her life", and that he has been investigated by real-world bodies regarding it. Fred Bauder has proposed motions describing Husnock's comments as "regrettable", and others desysopping him as well as cautioning him on various matters, and encouraging Morwen to "be more sensitive to the feelings of others". Most of these proposals have the support of three arbitrators, but FloNight has opposed the remedy relating to Morwen.
  • Sathya Sai Baba 2: Thatcher131 alleges that Andries has repeatedly added a link to an unreliable source to the Robert Priddy article, in violation of a remedy in a prior case on the subject, and that SSS108 has edit warred and exhibited signs of article ownership on the page. Both users deny the allegations. UninvitedCompany has proposed remedies banning Andries from editing the article, or starting any dispute resolution procedures regarding it and requiring Etanik to edit under one username only. Fred Bauder has supported the proposals, but Charles Matthews has opposed the editing restrictions.
  • Midnight Syndicate: A case brought by Durova involving an edit war on the Midnight Syndicate article. Dionyseus and Skinny McGee allege that GuardianZ has engaged in sockpuppetry and general disruption on the article. He denies the allegations and argues that Dionyseus and Skinny McGee have engaged in similar behaviour. A temporary injunction has been granted placing Dionyseus, Skinny McGee, and GuardianZ on revert parole. Fred Bauder has proposed remedies, supported by jpgordon and Dmcdevit, banning GuardianZ and Skinny McGee from the article indefinitely, and Dionyseus for a period of three months, and forbidding any employees of Midnight Syndicate, Nox Arcana or Monolith Graphics from editing the article.
  • Yoshiaki Omura: Various users, principally Crum375, allege that Richardmalter and alleged sockpuppets have added biased, unsourced material to Bi-Digital O-Ring Test, an alternative medicine technique created by Yoshiaki Omura which was criticised by a New Zealand disciplinary tribunal as lacking scientific basis. However, Richardmalter denies that his pro-Omura edits were either biased or unsourced and claims that the mediation process has supported his position. Fred Bauder has proposed motions to the effect that "Richardmalter...[has] edited Yoshiaki Omura in an aggressive biased manner", and banning him from the article indefinitely. These motions have attracted the support of four arbitrators.
  • Derek Smart: A case involving a dispute over the inclusion of critical material in the Derek Smart article. Various editors on both sides of the dispute claim that the other has violated policy in promoting their case, and some suggest that various accounts (Supreme Cmdr and WarHawkSP inter alia) are in fact used by Smart himself, citing as evidence perceived similarities in their writing styles. These editors deny the allegations. Remedies have been proposed prohibiting single-purpose accounts (of which Mael-Num, WarHawk, WarHawkSP, and Supreme_Cmdr are named as examples) from reverting the article, and banning Supreme Cmdr for two weeks, as well as an alternative remedy banning him for one year. These remedies have the support of three to six arbitrators.
  • Naming Conventions: A case regarding a dispute over whether articles without alternative meanings should be disambiguated for the sake of clarity - for example, Never Kill a Boy on the First Date (Buffy episode). While about 80% of involved editors said in a straw poll that it should not be disambiguated, both sides allege that editors on the other have behaved disruptively. Fred Bauder has proposed a principle stating that appeals to the Arbitration Committee as a method to determine consensus in a policy dispute is not generally viable, due to the press of work as well as other considerations, and a remedy stating that no penalties are to be imposed in respect of past actions in violation of consensus, but has proposed an enforcement motion stating that editors who violate the consensus decision in the matter may be briefly blocked. UninvitedCompany has also proposed a remedy banning Izzy Dot for two weeks. These motions have the support of five to seven arbitrators.



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