Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2007-12-17
From the editor
The Arbitration Committee elections have finished; however, Jimmy Wales has not yet announced his picks for the position. When he announces his selection, we will update our article; until then, you can place the News and Notes article on your watchlist. Users who receive the Signpost on their talk page via the spamlist will not be notified.
Also, something to note: because Christmas and New Year's Day fall on Tuesdays this year (and thus Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve fall on Mondays), the Signpost will be publishing its next two issues on Wednesday (26 December and 2 January).
Thanks for reading the Signpost, and have a happy holiday season.
— Ral315
Former Wikimedia employee's criminal history detailed
Editor's note: The Wikipedia Signpost is an independent, community newspaper, and is not affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation. The contents of this page are that of their authors alone, and may not reflect the opinion of the Wikimedia Foundation.
The background of departed Wikimedia Foundation employee Carolyn Doran became the focus of controversy after a story describing her criminal record, as The Register continues its efforts to expose sordid affairs in the internal workings of Wikipedia. While the story was constructed to hint at a connection to the Foundation's audit currently underway, Wikimedia officers downplayed the notion that the news would have any relevance there.
A member of the Wikimedia staff in the St. Petersburg office who did not interact directly with most of the community, Doran left in July with little fanfare. The Board of Trustees subsequently indicated that she had resigned and entered into a confidentiality agreement with the organization (such agreements serve to guard against former employees and employers disparaging each other). As a result, Wikimedia officials generally declined to elaborate on the precise circumstances that led to her termination of employment.
Criminal records
Records of a Virginia court case show that not long after her resignation, Doran was arrested on a bench warrant for an alleged probation violation. The underlying matter, a hit and run case while driving under the influence that predates her Wikimedia employment, was highlighted by The Register, which charged that "Wikipedia's million-dollar check book was balanced by a convicted felon." The Register further claimed, "Her record also included convictions for passing bad checks, theft, petty larceny, additional DUIs, and unlawfully wounding her boyfriend with a gun shot to the chest." The 1990 unlawful wounding conviction was covered in the Washington Post; in her plea bargain, Doran's lawyer made the argument that the situation was one of a battered woman defending herself.
- Note: The Signpost could not confirm all of Doran's past convictions in every state, as listed by the Register, without the time and expense for a professional criminal history check. A number of the cases are more than a decade old and under her maiden name; records may not always be publicly available online. What could be determined is a history of DUI cases from multiple states.
As an analysis by Andrew Gray suggested, it was not clear that any of the incidents during her employment (a DUI arrest, a reported stop by immigration officials when returning from a Wikimedia meeting in Amsterdam) would necessarily have come to the organization's attention. Jimmy Wales denied knowing about the immigration stop. Wikimedia attorney Mike Godwin said, in response to complaints that the Foundation should have informed the community itself, that he had only a couple hours' notice of the Register story, and at the time the organization had nothing to document Doran's criminal convictions apart from what the Register had told him.
Doran's Wikimedia career
Doran was originally hired for bookkeeping help through a temporary staffing agency, later converted to a permanent employee, and ultimately given the title of Chief Operating Officer. Wikimedia board chair Florence Devouard indicated that neither Wikimedia nor the agency that initially provided her ever conducted a background check on Doran. Her promotion to COO came during a significant reorganization period in January, which also involved Brad Patrick vacating his temporary post as Executive Director to act as General Counsel only. The job description for Doran's position included some of the operational necessities created by Patrick's shift (responsibility for fiscal administration, office management), but indicated that the position would be subordinate to the future Executive Director.
The duties of Wikimedia's COO would further evolve with the opening advertised after her departure, which called for additional qualifications and responsibilities. Even disregarding any criminal record, it seems likely Doran would not have qualified for the position as ultimately contemplated. Her Wikimedia career reflects the organization's continuing evolution, using often underqualified and overtaxed staff, into a gradually more professional institution with the appointment of Sue Gardner as Executive Director. As Godwin put it, "Carolyn served the Foundation in an important transitional period, and we wish her well."
Subsequent steps
According to Godwin, the Wikimedia Foundation now has an arrangement in place to allow background checks on incoming employees, including those from outside the United States. Aside from the issue of having procedures in place to prevent such a situation happening again, the primary concerns people raised were the implications for Wikimedia finances.
As mentioned, the Foundation is currently going through an audit, which is an annual process considered part of the expected routine for professionally run nonprofit organizations. It was not prompted by anything related to Doran's departure, although the auditor's report would presumably deal with the issue if it discovered any wrongdoing on her part. Jimmy Wales pledged that if the audit turned up any evidence of theft, he would personally reimburse the Wikimedia Foundation for any losses. Wales emphasized, though, that he did not expect such a discovery and anticipated his promise would ultimately cost him nothing.
Möller resigns from board, joins foundation as employee
This week, Erik Möller abruptly resigned from the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, and in a later announcement, Möller was named the Deputy Director of the Foundation, starting January 10.
On Monday, Foundation Chair Florence Devouard announced that Möller had resigned:
As chair of the board of trustees of Wikimedia Foundation, I would like to announce that Erik Moeller has decided to resign from the board two days ago. Erik decided to reorient his activities in other directions, and I hope we'll continue to be able to work together constructively from here on. ... Erik's seat is open again. The board agreed to propose the seat to a community member, and agreed on a person. The person has been approached and has not given any answer yet. There is no real urgency anyway. The seat will be an appointed one, up for new elections in a few months.
Early Tuesday, Foundation Executive Director Sue Gardner announced Möller's new position:
I am delighted to announce Erik Moeller as Deputy Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. Erik will take up his new responsibilities in our San Francisco headquarters beginning January 10, and will report directly to me. As part of this transition, and as you know already from Florence's announcement yesterday, Erik has resigned from his role as Board member. ... Our chief technical officer, Brion Vibber, will report to Erik. In addition, I will be delegating specific projects to him, and he will act on my behalf when I am traveling or otherwise unavailable. He will also play an important role in orienting the new San Francisco staff, and helping them to understand the processes, history and values of the Wikimedia projects. Since I joined the Foundation in June, I have been impressed with Erik's commitment, hard work and evangelism on behalf of Wikimedia. I know he will now be able to make an even greater contribution to what we do, and I'm very pleased he's agreed to join the staff in the new office.
Möller was first elected to the Board in September 2006, as a replacement for retiring board member Angela Beesley. He was subsequently re-elected in June 2007 to a 2-year term. With Möller's resignation from the Board, his replacement, a community member who has been offered the seat but has not accepted it yet, will serve until June 2008, at which point elections will be held for his/her term, as well as the term of Devouard.
Meanwhile, Möller, in accepting the new position of Deputy Director, moves into more of a managerial role. As a Board member, Möller's role was mainly non-personnel oriented, as a voting member and Secretary of the Board. However, Möller served as Danny Wool's supervisor for about two months, overseeing Wool on non-administrative tasks such as grants and special projects. Wool resigned in late March 2007, for reasons unrelated to his relationship with Möller.
Google announces foray into user-generated knowledge
In an announcement last week, Google Vice President of Engineering Udi Manber announced the invitation-only testing of Knol, a site hosting user-generated content on a wide range of subjects.
The term knol was coined by Google to mean a unit of knowledge, and refers to the entire project as well as individual articles. While the jury is still out on whether Knol will be successful, or whether it will even make it to a public launch, the obvious comparison that has sparked the Internet alight is with Wikipedia.
There are some immediately apparent differences between Knol and Wikipedia. The most important one is that Knol is not a wiki. Content pages will be owned by a single author and that sole author has the responsibility of maintaining its content; other users can participate by suggesting edits, or by rating or commenting on the article. This setup is comparable to that of, e.g., PlanetMath.
With immediate comparisons to Wikipedia, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales was interviewed for articles relating to Knol; Wales classified the project as "cool", but noted that, with advertising, and potential commercial benefits to its authors based on ad revenue, "you may see an awful lot of articles about Viagra."
Foundation Chair Florence Devouard took a more cautious approach to Knol:
I do not share the same optimism than Jimbo with regards to Knol. I think Knol is probably our biggest threat since the creation of Wikipedia. I really mean the biggest. Maybe not so much the project itself, but the competition it will create, the PR consequences, the financial tsunami, the confusion in people minds (free as in free speech or as in free of charge). Many parties are trying to influence us, to buy us, and conflicts of interest are becoming the rule rather than the exception. There are power struggles on the path.
Meanwhile, Mathias Schindler noted that a screenshot of the site seemed to indicate that its content may be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license, which would allow its usage within other works, potentially including Wikipedia.
Related news articles
WikiWorld comic: "Tractor beam"
This week's WikiWorld comic uses text from "Tractor beam". The comic is released under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 license for use on Wikipedia and elsewhere.
News and notes
ArbCom elections complete, awaiting results
Elections for the Arbitration Committee ended this week. Results of the elections are available, although the final decision rests with Jimbo Wales, who is expected to announce new arbitrators later this week. The top eight finishers, by percentage:
- Newyorkbrad, 97.3%
- FT2, 88.9%
- FayssalF, 76.1%
- Sam Blacketer, 74.3%
- Deskana, 73.0%
- Thebainer, 67.2%
- Rebecca, 65.1%
- Raul654, 65.0%
At least five candidates will be chosen after the elections by Jimmy Wales, although in both of the last two elections, Jimbo has appointed more than the minimum number of arbitrators. In January 2006, he expanded the Committee from 12 to 15 members, and in Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2006, he appointed an additional user in place of Filiocht, who was unable to discharge his duties due to illness (Filiocht is eligible to claim an additional seat through 2008, but has not edited since June 2006).
In previous elections, Jimbo Wales has chosen arbitrators mainly by the vote percentages, although in the January 2006 elections, he appointed two former arbitrators who were not directly next in line by percentage, "in the interests of ... maintaining continuity".
Steward elections complete, awaiting results
Elections for new stewards also ended this week. The Board of Trustees now has the option to select any candidate with at least 80% support. Ten users have at least 93% support, and two others hover just above the 80% support mark; the top twelve finishers, by percentage:
- Spacebirdy, 100.0%
- Jusjih, 98.6%
- .anaconda, 98.0%
- Dungodung, 98.0%
- Wpedzich, 96.6%
- Thogo, 96.3%
- Lar, 94.8%
- Zirland, 94.6%
- Millosh, 94.7%
- Andre Engels, 93.8%
- DerHexer, 81.2%
- Nick1915, 80.2%
In all elections so far, the Board has confirmed all candidates with at least 80% support; however, DerHexer and Nick1915 are the only candidates to ever finish so close to the 80% mark. Meanwhile, Dmcdevit, who had held at least 88% support for much of the election, finished with only 78% support, just out of the running, after controversy over his role in the temporary desysopping of Zscout370 over actions taken at the Carolyn Doran article.
Confirmation of current stewards is also complete; comments left there will be considered by current and incoming stewards, and some present stewards may lose their positions.
Wikimania 2009 bidding opens
Wikimania 2009 bidding officially opened this week; as of press time, two official bids had been submitted: Bogotá and Toronto. New bids will be open until January 12, at which time the jury will be announced. Bids already created will be open until February 3, when bidding will end, and deliberations will begin. On or before February 20, the host city for Wikimania 2009 will be announced to the public.
Fundraiser continues
The Wikimedia Foundation fundraiser continued this week. In the first eight weeks of the fundraiser, about 38,000 people had donated at least US$1, and the Foundation had raised about $1,200,000.
Monday, December 17's total donations ($10,503.77) and Saturday, December 15's number of contributions (294) reached a fundraiser low; however, the size of the average donation continues to stay above the fundraiser average; for the last thirteen days, the average donation size has eclipsed the fundraiser average of $31.71.
Briefly
- The English Wikipedia has reached 6,000,000 registered users.
- The Portuguese Wikibooks has reached 80,000 edits.
- The Hungarian Wikipedia has reached 80,000 articles.
- The French Wikiquote has reached 5,000 quotes.
- The Khmer Wikipedia has reached 500 articles.
- The Ukrainian Wikipedia has reached 80,000 articles.
- The Malayalam Wikipedia has reached 5,000 articles.
- The Guarani Wikipedia has reached 100 articles.
In the news
Wikipedia comprehensively reviewed
Wikipedia Rules - In one of the more comprehensive and well-researched pieces on Wikipedia seen this year, the article presents an overview of Wikipedia's scope, users and their user pages, administrators, the fight against vandalism, and the discontent that has found itself in the project at times. The article provides a good insight into why people contribute: one editor who was interviewed said that it was because "Wikipedia is a good way to leave a trace of your life". There are many ways in which editors can help out, from the big to the small, and the featured article process gets a mention. Another editor said that you are often best at writing about new topics that you are not particularly expert in, because you do not bring preconceived biases into your writing, and also, "it's much more fun to contribute to articles on subjects you’d like to learn about than ones you already know".
Other mentions
Other recent mentions in the online press about Wikipedia include:
- Google debuts knowledge project - Google has announced the private beta of Knol that is an online repository of user-contributed knowledge, and this has invited comparisons with Wikipedia: see related story.
- Hey dad, Wikipedia says that you... - The son of singer Jeff Tweedy discovers that his father was a drug addict by reading Wikipedia.
- University of Minnesota researchers reveal new findings about Wikipedia authorship and vandalism - Researchers perform a quantitative analysis of vandalism and find it to be a relatively small problem on Wikipedia today.
- The Wiki way of doing things - Apart from a general overview of Wikipedia, the article mentions Jimmy Wales' visit to South Africa and his comments on Google.
- Wikipedia to be sued in Poland? - A Polish user is suing Wikipedia Polska after reading that he had been referred to as a "troll", a term that he claims is "Something like a paedophile elsewhere".
If you want to suggest "In the news" stories, please post them to the tip line. We cannot guarantee that your submission will be included, but we will try to read all submissions and evaluate its suitability. Thank you to everyone who has contributed thus far.
WikiProject Report: Plants
WikiProject Plants, also known as WP:PLANTS, is a WikiProject dedicated to improving Wikipedia's coverage of plant species and botany. It is an old Project, having been created in August 2004 by TeunSpaans. Although the project nominally has some 70 members, it is primarily maintained by a core of around 20. Several members have an academic background.
For the most part, project members work on their own projects within the scope of WP:PLANTS. Given the sheer number of articles (26,000+ and missing a great many more), and the variety of interests, it is often difficult to coordinate actions in creating Featured or Good articles. One of the project's GAs, plant defense against herbivory, was in fact spearheaded by users who weren't nominally project members. Overall, the focus of the project is currently more on filling lists with blue links than improving existing articles (Although MPF, amongst others, has been working on improving and sourcing tree articles).
2007 also saw the project's first FAs and GAs not to be spearheaded by other projects: Verbascum thapsus and Ailanthus altissima. Articles that became GAs in 2007 include Acer rubrum, Marsileaceae and Marchantiophyta.
Assessment and improvement
Article assessment was introduced fairly late, in March 2007, and progressed relatively slowly. Despite this late start, more than 26,000 plants articles have been identified, and most of that number have been assessed. Ricardo Carneiro Pires has assessed more WP:PLANTS articles than any other user. WP:PLANTS assessment is integrated with the assessment templates of the Banksia and Carnivorous Plants projects to avoid duplication of templates.
EncycloPetey initiated an effort in August to improve all of the project's top- and high- importance above start. Half of the top-importance articles are now rated at B quality. The template {{botany}} is also a recent creation that assists users in finding key articles about plants, while highlighting key articles that need improvement the most.
Stub creation continues at a usual pace and is monitored through the AlexNewArtBot-maintained new plant article list. SB Johnny has been creating stub articles to complement the Bloom Clock on Wikiversity that he organizes and maintains. In other areas, WillowW recently created hundreds of algae-related stubs and IceCreamAntisocial has quietly been creating hundreds of plant stubs, many of which are in the often neglected Asteraceae. Neither WillowW or IceCreamAntisocial are self-identified members of WikiProject Plants, however.
Current and perennial issues
In July and August, Polbot created approximately 11,000 plant stubs that were generated from the IUCN Red List data, which created a great deal of cleanup work for the project. This includes correcting typos, sorting stubs, and updating taxonomy of these species.
Just as with other projects dealing with organisms, questions of use of common names versus Latin names crop up regularly. The use of common names has proved a troublesome area for the project, especially for species which have distinct names in different areas of their ranges, or otherwise confusing names, such as Ironwood. This dilemma was at least in part solved by the development of a naming convention that places all articles at their Latin names, except crops (which common name to use within articles remains a bone of contention). The method of dealing with agricultural crops vs. their botanical aspect (e.g. Coffee vs. Coffea; compare saffron) is generally dealt with a case by case basis. Another issue has been capitalization of common names, which still awaits a definitive resolution.
There is a perennial effort to create articles for currently unused plant images. Stan Shebs has compiled a list of his own images in such a situation, which outlines how much work remains to be done in our area of Wikipedia. Despite this, there is also a perennial lack of images for many articles, especially tropical, rare or otherwise out-of-the-way plants.
Related projects
WP:PLANTS is a descendant of WikiProject Tree of Life (WP:TOL), and has four descendant projects:
- WikiProject Banksia (WP:BANKSIA, working on Banksia-related articles)
- WikiProject Carnivorous plants (WP:CPLANTS)
- WikiProject Horticulture and Gardening
- WikiProject Plant Evo Devo (working on Plant evolutionary developmental biology articles)
Features and admins
Administrators
Fifteen users were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: Walton One (nom), Wassupwestcoast (nom), Jerry (nom), Ruhrfisch (nom), Elonka (nom), Kurt Shaped Box (nom), Od Mishehu (nom), Michael Greiner (nom), Slakr (nom), Keith D (nom), Kralizec! (nom), ArnoldReinhold (nom), A. B. (nom), xDanielx (nom), and Snowolf (nom).
Bots
Four bots or bot tasks were approved to begin operating this week: EBot_III (task request), Redrocketbot (task request), RoboMaxCyberSem (task request), and HarrivBOT (task request).
Featured content
Eighteen articles were promoted to featured status last week: Ceres (dwarf planet) (nom), Lisa the Skeptic (nom), T206 Honus Wagner (nom), Cold Feet (nom), Press Gang (nom), City & South London Railway (nom), Allosaurus (nom), Hurricane Danny (1997) (nom), South of Heaven (nom), Cortana (nom), Melodifestivalen (nom), Constantine II of Scotland (nom), Godsmack (nom), Youngstown Ohio Works (nom), Mysore (nom), Shapinsay (nom), Battle of Albuera (nom) and Loveless (album) (nom).
Ten lists were promoted to featured status last week: List of Alpha Kappa Alpha sisters (nom), List of Green Bay Packers first-round draft picks (nom), Lists of Michigan Wolverines football receiving leaders (nom), List of Hitohira episodes (nom), Margate F.C. seasons (nom), List of Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Merseyside (nom), List of colleges and universities in New Hampshire (nom), List of Devil May Cry episodes (nom), List of cast members of The Simpsons (nom), and List of YuYu Hakusho episodes (nom). List of Green Bay Packers first-round draft picks became the 500th featured list.
One topic was promoted last week: Naruto manga chapters (nom). No sounds or portals were promoted last week.
Two articles were de-featured last week: Karl Dönitz (nom) and (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (nom).
The following featured articles were displayed last week on the Main Page as Today's featured article: Ehime Maru and USS Greeneville collision, Yasser Arafat, Lethbridge, A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant, South Australian general election, 2006, Lee Smith (baseball player) and The Simpsons.
The following featured pictures were displayed last week on the Main Page as picture of the day: St. Louis, Missouri, Mummified seahorse, Giza Necropolis, Axis leaders of World War II, Red-veined darter, Battle of Okinawa, and Fuel injector.
Twelve pictures were promoted to featured status last week and are shown below.
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Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
This is a summary of recent technology and site configuration changes that affect the English Wikipedia. Note that not all changes described here are necessarily live as of press time; the English Wikipedia is currently running version 1.44.0-wmf.4 (a8dd895), and changes to the software with a version number higher than that will not yet be active. Configuration changes and changes to interface messages, however, become active immediately.
Fixed bugs
- The 'Compare selected versions' buttons are now disabled on pages with only 1 version. (r28390, bug 11221)
- The option to view all namespaces on Special:Newpages now actually works; previously it only displayed the article namespace. (r28524, bug 12031)
- Selecting the option to hide patrolled pages on Special:Newpages no longer causes the number of pages shown on each screen of results to reset. (r28524, bug 12283)
New features
- Special:Protectedtitles was also added to track these pages. (r28506)
- MediaWiki:Unusedimagestext now supports wikitext. (r28527, bug 12063)
- Special:Upload now lists which file types are allowed. (r28530, no associated bug tracker entry)
Configuration changes
- The prefixes WP: and Wikipedia: are now 'aliases', meaning that they mean the same thing. This means that all shortcut redirects of the form WP:POST have been moved to the Wikipedia: namespace, and now have names like Wikipedia:POST (although because WP: and Wikipedia: are now aliases, typing WP:POST will still work). Likewise, WT: is now an alias for Wikipedia talk:. (bug 6313)
Ongoing news
- Internationalisation has been continuing as normal; help is always appreciated! See mw:Localisation statistics for how complete the translations of languages you know are, and post any updates to bugzilla or use Betawiki.
The Report on Lengthy Litigation
The Arbitration Committee did not open any new cases this week, and closed one case, leaving six cases currently open.
Closed case
- Anonimu: A case involving revert warring and incivility by Anonimu. As a result of the case, Anonimu's community ban was confirmed, and he was concurrently banned for a year.
Evidence phase
- John Buscema: A case involving editing of the John Buscema article by editors including Tenebrae and Skyelarke.
- Dbachmann: A case involving alleged misconduct on the part of administrator Dbachmann and editing by other editors on several race-related articles.
Voting phase
- RodentofDeath: A case involving alleged personal attacks and policy violations by RodentofDeath on articles including Angeles City. Remedies banning RodentofDeath for one year, and reminding Susanbryce not to use Wikipedia for purposes of advocacy, have the support of two arbitrators.
- Physchim62: A case revolving around a block of fellow administrator Hesperian by Physchim62. Other users assert that Physchim62 has misused his administrative tools in the past. A remedy noting that Physchim62 has resigned his administrative privileges "under controversial circumstances," so that he could not seek resysopping without a new RfA, has the support of four arbitrators.
- Episodes and characters: A case involving alleged misconduct with regard to the notability of episodes and characters from television series. Remedies admonishing TTN and urging the parties to collaborate on the issue have the support of four arbitrators, but are opposed by arbitrator UninvitedCompany.
- Matthew Hoffman: A case involving a controversial block of MatthewHoffman as a sockpuppet by a vanished user. Arbitrator UninvitedCompany has proposed a remedy calling for Hoffman's block log to be annotated to show that the blocks were unjustified, which has support from four other arbitrators, but is opposed by Fred Bauder. Another remedy, proposed by Bauder and supported by three other arbitrators but opposed by two, cautions the vanished user to avoid taking significant administrative action where he has strong opinions, while a remedy desysopping him stands at five to one. More recently, a motion to suspend the case for 30 days to allow for community input at an RfC has obtained the support of five arbitrators.