Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2008-07-07
From the editor
This week, I'm able to publicly talk about an issue that has been bothering me for a few months; I know some users are at least aware of this situation, but I've been unable to talk much about it until now. In the interests of transparency, I'd like to fill everyone in.
In early May, we first prepared to write a story on a pending lawsuit against Wikimedia; that lawsuit was dismissed this week (see related story). Due to the nature of the case, I discussed the matter with Foundation staff; the response was something between a request and a demand that I not publish the story, due to legal concerns. After careful consideration, and discussion with friends and colleagues, I chose not to publish the story until after the case was decided.
Given the circumstances, I feel this was an unfortunate, but necessary, move. While the Signpost is fully independent from the Wikimedia Foundation in terms of content, we obviously are hosted on Foundation servers, and Signpost founder Michael Snow is currently a member of the Foundation's Board of Trustees. I felt that should an article published in the Signpost regarding this case be submitted in court, that the court might be unable to determine the extent of such independence, and it might have had a severe effect on the case.
I'm still rather troubled by the very nature of this situation, because it was the first time that I've felt pressured by the Wikimedia Foundation not to write or publish a story. This also leaves us with a dangerous precedent that I'm hoping only to keep in the most serious cases.
I apologize that I was not able to inform you on this case prior to its decision, and I hope that future cases do not require me to do the same.
I'd like to also solicit your views on this issue; feel free to discuss these concerns on the talk page.
Thanks for reading the Signpost.
— Ral315
Wikimedia releases 2008-2009 Annual Plan
Last week, the Wikimedia Foundation released its annual plan for FY2009, spanning the period from July 1, 2008 through June 30, 2009. During that period, the Foundation expects to spend about US$5.97 million, on revenues of $7.34 million.
Along with this plan came estimated figures from FY2008. The Foundation estimated $4.57 million in revenue in FY2008, just short of the FY2008 budgeted expenditures of $4.61 million, but well over the $2.94 million in actual expenditures. The main reason for this discrepancy is a significant under-spending in technology, where a budgeted $2.57 million of expenditures far outstripped the $900,000 in actual expenditures. This discrepancy was explained as due to a few reasons: General caution in purchasing, delays in hiring personnel due to the office's move to San Francisco, and pending sponsorship deals that may help defray some new server costs.
In FY2009, $2.7 million is budgeted for technology; of this, about $1 million will go toward servers and other hardware costs. Hosting costs account for about $860,000, and the remainder will go toward salaries and contractor payments. That figure includes a $500,000 anticipated "donation in kind", likely referring to the pending sponsorship deal(s) mentioned above.
Other budget changes mainly deal with increased personnel, with new hires throughout FY2008 and anticipated hires throughout FY2009. Included in the plan is a timeline for estimated hires; the hires currently planned for FY2009 include:
- August: Software developer
- August: Development specialist
- October: Software developer
- October: Systems administrator
- January: Chief Programs Officer
- February: Software developer
The position of "Head of Partnerships" was originally scheduled to be filled around January, but was actually filled this week (see below). By the end of FY2009, the Foundation is expected to employ 26 people, including nine developers/technical staff, six people in the programs department, eight dedicated to finance and administration, and the general counsel and executive and deputy directors.
Erik Zachte, Sara Crouse hired
Meanwhile, the Foundation made its first two hires of FY2009 last week, officially hiring Erik Zachte as a part-time contractor to the Wikimedia Foundation as of September 1, and hiring Sara Crouse as Head of Partnerships and Foundation Relations.
Zachte, a long-time member of the Wikimedia community and the developer of WikiStats, will focus primarily on providing the Foundation with statistics and metrics about the projects; CTO Brion Vibber indicated that an immediate project would be integrating traffic statistics formally into WikiStats.
Crouse, meanwhile, has been working with the Foundation on a contractual basis for several months, helping the Foundation to build its strategies for attracting major donors. Her hiring as Head of Partnerships and Foundation Relations is apparently effective immediately.
Defamation case against Wikimedia dismissed
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.
A New Jersey Superior Court judge dismissed[dead link] a defamation-of-character suit against the Wikimedia Foundation on July 1. The case involved a claim made by another organization, which was subsequently cited within a Wikipedia article.
Literary agent Barbara Bauer's Wikipedia biography (since deleted) reported her company's appearance on a list of "twenty worst literary agencies" from the Writer Beware section of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America website, compiled based on the volume of complaints received by Writer Beware. Some versions also reported claims that Bauer had used legal threats to suppress criticism. The article was deleted on April 7, 2007 following its second deletion discussion. Although there were many editors in favor of keeping the article and all negative material was explicitly sourced, the closing administrator found that "concerns about the quality of sourcing, and issues of NPOV and BLP, were not answered in the debate, and outweighed any weight of numbers in favour of keeping the article." Bauer was first reported to have sued the WMF (among others) in March 2007, but the administrator who closed the discussion discounted arguments that invoked the lawsuit.
In the decision, Judge Jamie S. Perri cited Wikimedia's argument that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects the WMF from liability, as an "interactive computer services" provider rather than a traditional publisher that directly controls published content (although the WMF is one of many users of the service).
The lawsuit marked the first test of the legal reasoning that underlies some decisions of the Wikipedia community and the WMF regarding treatment of material involving living people. It is widely assumed that Section 230 protects the Foundation in cases where damaging content published on its websites is provided by others. The law states that "[n]o provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." As a May 2 EFF press release argued, "Section 230's blanket protection of sites like Wikipedia does not mean that alleged defamation on the Internet cannot be challenged in court. Instead, the law requires that litigants direct their efforts at the speakers themselves and not the forums where statements were made."
In cooperation with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Foundation was represented by Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP. The case, Bauer et al. v. Glatzer et al., is still ongoing, with 19 individuals and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America still named as defendants.
WikiWorld: "Charles Lane"
- This comic originally appeared on April 2, 2007.
This week's WikiWorld comic uses text from "Charles Lane (actor)". The comic is released under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 license for use on Wikipedia and elsewhere.
News and notes
Administrative bots and proposed abuse filter draw comment
Drawing discussion this week are a request for comment regarding administrative bots, and a discussion regarding a proposed MediaWiki extension that could allow administrators to add specific restrictions against actions made on-wiki.
A request for comment is currently ongoing regarding the use of administrative bots. Bot accounts have historically been denied adminship in most cases, even where the task is relatively non-controversial. As a result, some administrators have resorted to running automated bots on their main account, where they can access the administrative tools. Discussion centers mainly around what process should be used to approve such bots as a community.
Another discussion centers around a new, powerful extension (AbuseFilter) that could allow administrators to add specific restrictions regarding specific types of edits, page moves or other actions; these restrictions range from denying the user the right to make such edits, to blocking the user in obvious cases of vandalism. The actions could be different based on edit count, account age, and other variables relating to the user making the action in question.
Arbitration Committee updates
After vacating a controversial case last week (see archived story), the Arbitration Committee issued a final report on the matter on July 4. It reads:
The Committee has decided to issue a Final Report on the Orangemarlin case, now resolved without formal proceedings by a voluntary mentoring agreement. What is said here is on the basis of an exhaustive review of all discussions relevant to the handling of the matter. It takes into account feedback from observers on our ArbCom mailing list.
This report supersedes earlier statements.
(1) Role of FT2
It was always an unlikely explanation that FT2, who is known for his careful and thorough work on and for Wikipedia, had wittingly gone outside and deliberately flouted our standard procedures. Part of the blame lies on email discussion as a way to get work done. The Committee takes collective responsibility for what occurred. Inferences that have been made, adverse to FT2's reputation for care, are simply not well founded.
(2) Handling of matters in private and public
We want to clarify the nature of two types of ArbCom "paths" - ways of handling matters, that are not the usual cases held in the Wikipedia: namespace. These are
(a) Summary actions (such as are often applied to serious sockpuppetry investigations); (b) Privately-held cases.
We do not hold cases under (b) that are handled under the terms of (a). That would be the kind of "secret trial" that has been alleged. We do not hold such private cases without the participation of the parties. Orangemarlin was handled directly under (a).
We shall make it a rule not to have such matters tracked this way in future, but the core of the problem can be said to lie in this point: trying to specify a completely rule-based system here failed us.
Meanwhile, a request for comment on the Committee and its role has received an unprecedented 650KB of discussion, and nearly 2,000 edits.
Briefly
- A project to redesign the Main Page has been suggested, and is currently accepting design proposals. The page was last revamped in March 2006.
- The Polish Wikibooks has reached 3000 articles.
In the news
Chinese Wikipedia unblocked
Chinese Wikipedia unblocked by government – The Chinese Wikipedia is now accessible in some parts of China, but it appears to remain blocked in Shanghai, Shenzhen and some parts of Beijing. The English Wikipedia is currently accessible in China. There is some skepticism, however, that Wikipedia will remain available after the upcoming Olympic Games.
Other mentions
Other recent mentions in the online media include:
- Not Fired: The Wikipedia Updater Who Scooped NBC On Tim Russert's Death – The colleague who prematurely announced Tim Russert's death on Wikipedia appears to have been only suspended, not fired.
- Students write Wikipedia articles instead of term papers for UBC prof – This article reviews the project Murder Madness and Mayhem, a semester-long assignment to create featured articles on Latin American authors and books.
- Students Depend On Wikipedia; Teachers Question Reliability – Students are able to find anything on Wikipedia, but Dr DiBenedetto of the University of Miami says, "Wikipedia is the bane of my existence".
- The WTF World of Wikipedia – Mind-boggling examples of differences in word count between articles on real-world and fictional topics.
Dispatches: Style guide and policy changes, June
The changes in June were dominated by the revamping of Manual of Style (dates and numbers) guidelines on such areas as scientific notation, binary prefixes, and units of measurement. For feedback and any corrections that are required, please leave a note here. All monthly updates from the start of this year are listed here.
Manual of Style (dates and numbers)
There were major changes to the guidelines on scientific notation, engineering notation, and uncertainty; binary prefixes; and units of measurement.
Manual of Style (main page)
Non-breaking spaces. The narrower scope for using non-breaking (i.e., "hard") spaces was significantly clarified. They should be used:
- in compound expressions in which figures and abbreviations or symbols are separated by a space (17 kg, AD 565, 2:50 pm);
- between month and day in dates that are not autoformatted (August 3, 1979);
- on the left side of spaced en dashes; and
- in other places where displacement might be disruptive to the reader, such as £11 billion, 5° 24′ 21.12″ N, Boeing 747, and the first two items in 7 World Trade Center.
Layout
Instability: The large number of edits during this month has caused disquiet among contributors. Because many of these changes may be subsumed by an audit for copy-editing and other issues during July, the details are not listed here.
Lead section
Establish context. The following sentence was added:
- Where an article title is of the type "List of ...", the repetition of the title in the first line should generally be avoided in favour of providing readers with useful information about the context of the list.
Citing sources
Why sources should be cited. This was added:
- The citation should state, as clearly, fully, and precisely as possible, how a reader can find the source material, such as by external link to the source website. If the material is not findable online, it should be findable in reputable libraries, archives, or collections. If a citation without an external link is challenged as unfindable, any of the following is sufficient to show the material to be reasonably findable (though not necessarily reliable): providing an ISBN or OCLC number; linking to an established Wikipedia article about the source (the work, its author, or its publisher); or directly quoting the material on the talk page, briefly and in context.
When to cite sources. The last sentence was added:
- The list of featured-article criteria calls for citations where appropriate. This page clarifies that requirement. This list is not exhaustive, and the examples are suggestions only. Each case must be dealt with on its merits.
When adding material that is challenged or likely to be challenged. This was added:
- Opinions, data and statistics, and statements based on someone's scientific work should be cited and attributed to their authors in the text.
Reference qualification in article text. This text:
- A statement open to controversy, regarding which the qualified supporting references conflict with one another, may need to include some elaboration.
was changed to:
- ... points which are more controversial, where there are contradictory studies or different opinions, may need to include more descriptive context.
Provide full citations. The underlined words were added:
- Citations for newspaper articles typically include the title of the article in quotes, the byline (author's name), the name of the newspaper in italics, date of publication, page number(s), and a comment with the date you retrieved it if it is online (invisible to the reader).
Embedded links. The second sentence was added:
- A full citation is also required in a References section at the end of the article. Providing an access date for the link in a comment helps editors recover a link that has become unavailable.
Featured article candidate instructions
The instructions on capping by reviewers were amended by adding a second sentence (underlined):
- "Alternately, reviewers may hide lengthy, resolved commentary in a cap template with a signature in the header. This method should be used sparingly, because it can cause the FAC archives to exceed template limits.
Featured sound candidate instructions
In a significant change, this rule:
- For listing, if a sound is listed here for seven days with four or more supporting votes (including the nominator if it was not a self-nomination), and the general consensus is in its favor, it can be added to a Wikipedia:Featured sounds list. If necessary, decisions about close votes will be made on a case-by-case basis.
was changed to this:
- If a nomination is listed here for 14 days with three or more supporting declarations and the general consensus is in its favor, it can be added to a Wikipedia:Featured sounds list.
Non-free content
WP:NFCC#8. The last clause was again removed, having been removed and reinstated in previous months:
- Significance. Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic
, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding.
Features and admins
Administrators
Five users were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: Frank (nom), Lomn (nom), thedemonhog (nom), Tanner-Christopher (nom), TomStar81 (nom).
Bots
Eight bots or bot tasks were approved to begin operating this week: Maelgwnbot (task request), SoxBot X (task request), DinoBot2 (task request), Swimmingbot-awb (task request), ShepBot (task request), J Milburn Bot (task request), WPArkansas Bot (task request), and Xenobot (task request).
Featured pages
Fifteen articles were promoted to featured status last week: William Speirs Bruce (nom), Archaea (nom), Michael Gomez (nom), Ant (nom), Chrysiridia rhipheus (nom), Baltimore Steam Packet Company (nom), Operation Varsity (nom), Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men (nom), Restoration of the Everglades (nom), Noble gas (nom), Grass Fight (nom), History of timekeeping devices (nom), Elaine Paige (nom), Ficus aurea (nom), and Rings of Uranus (nom).
Twenty five lists were promoted to featured status last week: Boston Red Sox captains (nom), List of Crimean War Victoria Cross recipients (nom), List of U.S. Open (golf) champions (nom), List of San Antonio Spurs head coaches (nom), List of Detroit Red Wings head coaches (nom), List of Buffalo Bills head coaches (nom), List of first overall NHL draft choices (nom), List of submissions for the 79th Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film (nom), NBA first overall draft pick (nom), List of heads of government of the Central African Republic and Central African Empire (nom), List of Indianapolis Colts head coaches (nom), List of Los Angeles Lakers head coaches (nom), List of Boston Celtics head coaches (nom), List of Twin Peaks episodes (nom), List of Chinese inventions (nom), The Office (U.S. TV series) season 2 (nom), List of Nine Inch Nails live-band members (nom), Woody Allen filmography (nom), List of elements by stability of isotopes (nom), Meshuggah discography (nom), List of tallest buildings in Columbus (nom), List of IIHF World Under-20 Championship medalists (nom), List of tallest buildings in Baltimore (nom), Euro gold and silver commemorative coins (Belgium) (nom), and Sepultura discography (nom).
One topic was promoted to featured status last week: 1998 Pacific hurricane season (nom).
Two portals were promoted to featured status last week: Portal:Chicago (nom) and Portal:World War II (nom).
The following featured articles were displayed last week on the Main Page as Today's featured article: Conatus, André Kertész, Winfield Scott Hancock, Macintosh Classic, Typhoon Paka, Russian-Circassian War, and New York State Route 32.
Former featured pages
Three articles were delisted last week: History of computing hardware (nom), Hong Kong (nom), and Brian Close (nom).
No lists were delisted last week.
No topics were delisted last week.
Featured media
The following featured pictures were displayed last week on the Main Page as picture of the day: Theodore Roosevelt, Hemicordulia tau, Stonemasonry, Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, American Robin, Blender software, and Los Angeles Police Department helicopter.
Two sounds were featured last week: Memphis Blues (nom) and When Johnny Comes Marching Home (nom).
No featured pictures were demoted last week.
Eleven 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 Cortado player (used to play .ogg files) now stops at the right moment rather than continuing for several minutes on low-performance computers. (bug 11445)
- The Cortado player's control bar no longer covers the bottom of a video it's playing. (r36977, bug 13795)
- Several bugs were fixed in the CategoryTree extension (which shows hierarchical lists of subcategories on category pages):
- Subcategories with no subsubcategories now no longer show a link to display their subsubcategories. (r36886, bug 11132)
- Empty subcategories now have the message stating that they are empty with certain combinations of options that were buggy beforehand. (r36886, bug 12149)
- The [+] link now links to the category it references when JavaScript is not enabled, rather than doing nothing. (r36773, bug 13680)
- Subcategories are now shown in normal font rather than in bold. (r37054, bug 14730)
- When a page is created and then immediately moved, its new title now appears in Special:Newpages. (r36938, bug 3481)
- Unprotecting an unprotected page no longer creates a log entry. (r36967, bug 12716)
- The length (in characters) of a block expiry time is now limited to 50 characters, to prevent it corrupting the display of the block log. (r36980, bug 14088)
- Double-escaping was fixed in the RSS feed for log entries. (r37202, bug 14646)
- The parsing of MediaWiki:Loginsuccess was fixed; previously many more complicated constructions failed to parse due to mistakes in the way it was parsed. (r37209, bug 14709)
New features
- Special:SpecialPages now has a Table of Contents. (r36907, bug 13862)
- The meta=siteinfo API query now returns a wiki's timezone and writing direction (UTC and left-to-right for enwiki). (r37034, bug 14723)
It is now possible to mark a gadget (Special:Gadgets) as enabled for all users by default (with [default] at the end of its line in MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition), or as limited to certain groups of users (with [rights:]). (bugs 13742 and 12211, r37263)reverted in r37278
Configuration changes
- Global accounts can now only be administered by stewards, not by Meta bureaucrats. (bug 14461)
- The new toolserver URL has been whitelisted so that linking to the toolserver does not trigger CAPTCHAs for anonymous users. (bug 14632)
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 opened one case last week, and closed one case, leaving three cases currently open.
Closed case
- Giovanni33: A case involving the accusation of sockpuppetry by Giovanni33. The Committee has named at least fifteen accounts as likely sockpuppets of Giovanni33. As a result of the case, Giovanni33 and his proxy accounts were banned for one year. A proposed remedy that would have automatically renewed the ban every year, absent a decision by ArbCom to vacate the ban, was rejected; jpgordon called it "an end-run against our usual maximum one-year ban". Giovanni33 has, however, been banned indefinitely by the community as well.
New case
- Geogre-William M. Connolley: A case involving wheel warring between Geogre and William M. Connolley. William M. Connolley inappropriately extended a block on Giano II, while Geogre inappropriately reversed the block, and reversed page protection on Giano's talk page. The case is currently in the voting phase; remedies targeting the behavior of Geogre, William M. Connolley and Avruch, and potentially modifying remedy 2.2 in IRC are still under discussion.
Voting phase
- Yorkshirian: A case involving perceived incivility from Yorkshirian. A remedy to ban Yorkshirian for one year has the support of five arbitrators, with none opposing.
Motion to close
- C68-FM-SV: A case involving disputes between Cla68, FeloniousMonk, SlimVirgin, JzG, and others. The case, which has seen little-to-no public input from arbitrators, is currently subject to a motion to dismiss, with the support of one arbitrator.