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19 March 2012

 

2012-03-19

Chapters Council proposals take form as research applications invited for Wikipedia Academy and HighBeam accounts

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By Jan eissfeldt, Resident Mario and Mathew Townsend

Chapters Council draft proposals

Following the Wikimedia finance meeting in Paris in February 2012 (Signpost coverage), a number of chapters started to formally debate the idea of creating a Chapters Council to improve cooperation among themselves and to advance their common positions in relation to the Wikimedia Foundation. The deadline to draft a founding charter of the body to be established was March 18, and two designs have been discussed.

On March 7, Tango – the former treasurer of Wikimedia UK – submitted one draft and Ziko – the president of Wikimedia Nederland – another one, trying to outline a compromise between the older models KISS (Metternich), he authored himself, and B (Bismarck) by Sebmol. Both older models command some support among chapters who have indicated interest in joining a council. While KISS was distinguished by a short sleeves-approach with a paid director, B emphasized the need for a more robust institutional structure with a paid executive board.

Draft Tango

Tango's draft includes an assembly as main body, composed of two representatives for each chapter – one orderly member and their deputy – selected by that chapter according to a manner of its choosing. Each representative would have one vote. To ensure implementation and facilitation of the assembly, it is proposed to establish a staffed (paid) Secretariat, and to provide the main body with the option to delegate issues to special committees. The financial resources would be provided by the members.

Tango decided to incorporate optional clauses to be looked at in Berlin via WP:BRD to reflect different possibilities.

Draft Ziko (and others)
Wikimedia Chapters Association, draft charter by Ziko

Ziko's draft tries to combine the older models B and KISS, thereby creating some sort of chapter parliament – called Council, a kind of paid government – called Secretariat, and a roughly defined Judicial Board to handle conflicts occurring under the charter.

The council would be filled with people picked by the chapters, one per entity with one vote each and two year terms. Chapters joining could elect one representative and would be required to pay an as-yet-undefined amount of money to support the association.

State of the chapter boards

According to the chapter support count, B is named as the preferred version in the resolutions of the chapters of Germany, South Africa, and with some exceptions Israel, while KISS is backed by Austria, France, Serbia (which would like to integrate some elements of B), and Switzerland.

However, most of the resolutions of these chapters, as well as the others from interested chapters which have not formally expressed a preference for one of the underlying models in their resolutions (Chile, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Netherlands, UK, and Venezuela), provide considerable maneuvering space to agree on compromises. The chapters in the Netherlands and the UK, whose members were the primary drafters of the two final designs, have not formally committed themselves to either of the models originally discussed.

Additionally, several chapters vowed to provide resources – in the form of funds (from €10,000 from the Netherlands to €375 from Indonesia), manpower (Israel, Germany, Venezuela), and (in the case of the Swiss chapter) support in negotiations for offices in Zürich or Geneva.

Public criticism

The issue of resources was targeted by Nathan and Tom Morton on foundation-l as well as on Meta. The critics argued that the proposal to create a council was among other things too heavy-handed, while Jan Ainali – the chairman of Wikimedia Sverige – raised the point of how binding council decisions should be.

The process also sparked some discussions on the German Wikipedia, since Ziko published an article in the Signpost's tabloid-leaning sister publication, the Kurier, on March 10. Several Wikipedians, notably Hubertl (a member of the Austrian chapter) emphasized in the discussion that the purpose behind the concept and several aspects of the Ziko draft were insufficiently clear to them. The Tango draft played no role in the local German debate.

Next steps

According to the timeline, the interested chapters need one additional entity to formally support by mandate the general concept before March 25 to proceed in Berlin by signing a charter and handling details.

Wikipedia Academy 2012

Wikipedia Academy 2012 issued a call for submissions this week. Sponsored by Wikimedia Deutschland along with the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society and Freie Universität Berlin, the Academy is set to take place from June 29 to July 1 in Berlin this year as "a platform for the research community and the Wikipedia community to connect, present, discuss and advance research on Wikipedia in particular and on free knowledge in general."

The event is very academic in nature, and submissions are particularly encouraged from doctoral and postdoctoral researchers, to discuss "issues in the overall nexus of Wikipedia and free knowledge". Nonetheless it will be open to all, and feature a variety of sessions ranging from open panel discussions to workshops to lightning talks. As of now "topics of interest" are Wikipedia users and contributors, global differences, cultures and practices, economics and regulation, and statistics. Extended abstracts are due on 31 March 2012, and papers that are accepted are due in full on 1 June 2012.

First GLAM partnership in Bulgaria

On March 13, the first GLAM partnership in Bulgaria was officially announced by the Bulgarian Archives State Agency (BASA) and Wikipedia volunteers. In the beginning of November 2011, BASA initiated a dialogue with interested members of the local community for establishing a partnership that benefits both the Agency and the free encyclopedia. The idea that undergirds the talks is that BASA is to grant access – to those Wikipedian volunteers with whom official agreements have been made – to archival records not subject to copyright. The volunteers will digitize the records of interest to them, will upload them to Wikimedia Commons (commons:COM:BASA) and will use them to illustrate and enhance the articles published in the encyclopedia. In this way, BASA will attempt to popularize its activities and to enlarge the use of its records by the general public. The press conference on March 13 was well covered in the national media.

Brief notes

2012-03-19

Article Rescue Squadron in need of rescue yet again

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By Whenaxis and Skomorokh

The future of the Article Rescue Squadron (ARS) was once again drawn into question this week, as The Devil’s Advocate launched an RfC on the group with a 3,000 word opening statement addressing the issue of canvassing, which ARS members stand accused of engaging in.

At the time of writing, there were nine editors in support of the proposition that the ARS has engaged in canvassing. On the other hand, as expected, members of the ARS have entered the discussion in numbers to defend their project – which has survived four nominations for deletion in five years, primarily motivated by similar concerns.

Other concerns that have been brought up include gaming the system, disrupting Wikipedia to make a point, the project homepage and the (articles for) rescue list. These concerns, along with the main issue of canvassing, are being addressed by proposals such as initiating an in-house discussion about refocusing and restructuring the project, joining the ARS and instigating change from within, converting the rescue list into a proper deletion sorting (delsort) list (like those of other WikiProjects). For a full list of proposals, visit the discussion page.

The length and size of discussions

In brief
Discussions of note
New discussions
  • March 17: RfC to increase transparency and community involvement in ambassador (de)selection processes
  • March 13: RfC on the Requested Articles page
  • March 13: Request for input on Online Ambassador orientation
Discussions from last month
Discussions covered in the main body of the discussion report are not listed here.

Some discussions extend to such great lengths and attract so much commentary that they exceed that 300 kilobyte mark. The Arbitration Committee 3 RfC, an ongoing discussion on the Arbitration Committee and its dealings with well-behaved sockpuppets, presents an excellent example. Although it is very well structured, many editors viewing the discussion may be moved to think too long, so don't read it. Such a situation leaves a small number of interested editors, composed of those who are involved with the underlying topic and those who are so intrigued by the long discussion that they are moved to leave a comment after reading. It can be very easy to formulate an opinion on the matter by merely reading the opening statements which frame the issue at hand. However, many editors take a look at the number of editors polled in favour of the statements and formulate a decision based on the popularity of the arguments presented rather than their merits. This can often cause discussions to continue without an end in sight when one editor is not happy with the decision made and makes another poll to gauge the consensus afresh.

Wikipedia tries to cap these endless discussions by having an RfC last only 31 days, yet participants relist the RfC over and over to attract other editors to review the closed (or inactive) discussion, as in the case of the above cited RfC. The discussion on the Arbitration Committee and well-behaved sockpuppets, which commenced in January, stopped in early-February and was then revived in late-February after an editor relisted it at centralized discussion.

Such discussions can often present a challenge to the editor who steps up to close them; "no consensus" is a common outcome for convoluted debates, a lack of resolution that opens the possibility of discussion starting all over again as the same issues continue to arise. One solution may be to encourage participants to keep their comments short and to the point, and to ensure closers read the entire discussion and undertake the difficult task of trying to divine rough consensus where it exists, rather than taking the easy option of closing complex debates as "no consensus" by default.


Does the Article Rescue Squadron need reforming and is the group open to it? Is the RfC on the right track to resolving issues? What should be done with long and lengthy RfCs? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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2012-03-19

Lessons from another Wikipedia: Czech WikiProject Protected Areas

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By Mabeenot and Chmee2
WikiProject news
News in brief
Submit your project's news and announcements for next week's WikiProject Report at the Signpost's WikiProject Desk.
Emblem of the Czech WikiProject Protected Areas
Percentage of protected areas with photos in particular districts of the Czech Republic after a one-year period with green ticks indicating 100 percent coverage
This image of Dactylorhiza majalis in the natural monument Vojovická draha was the result of a grant targeting protected areas
This image of Pulsatilla pratensis was taken by a student as part of a collaboration with the Charles University
Iris sibirica in the natural monument Novoveska draha
Grant participants are also documenting different types of environmental management like the pictured attempt to build ant hills
Famous trees are included in the scope of this WikiProject, like this one in Český Těšín.

This week, we ventured outside our Anglophone bubble to see whether WikiProjects thrive on other Wikipedias. With dozens of language versions from which to choose our first foray into non-English WikiProjects, we started with the Czech Wikipedia's innovative WikiProjekt Chráněná území (WikiProject Protected Areas) which covers protected areas of the Czech Republic. Started a little over a year ago, WikiProject Protected Areas has incorporated a variety of social media, classroom projects, partnerships with NGOs, automated article creation, and other initiatives that build articles, improve categorization, unite nomenclature, and add geographic coordinates. The project has contributed a large collection of images to Commons, and even managed to produce and distribute a concentration game. The project has also gained the attention of the Wikimedia Foundation, which highlighted the project twice on the Foundation's blog with posts about the project's ambassador program and production of the concentration game. We interviewed the project's founder, Chmee2, who also wrote the following summary of the project's work:

Wikipedia's dozens of language versions are being written by enthusiasts who struggle to create a viable equivalent to the English Wikipedia – both for readers and editors. Czech Wikipedia is one of these, and exceeded 200,000 articles last year. The other Wikipedia versions are not only a source of valuable content that one can translate to enrich articles of his language version; often, the Wikipedia versions can share something that crosses the language barrier much more easily: an idea.
The aims of WikiProject Protected Areas extend beyond the usual concerns of WikiProjects – of improving encyclopedic content and acquiring new photos. We have set a long-term goal to attract readers so that they become editors of Wikipedia themselves. The need for new editors is one of the main challenges all Wikipedia language versions face. Nowadays, the Internet offers may opportunities to self-realize through writing; to maintain growth, Wikipedia has to offer such interesting projects that readers will be convinced to start contributing.
WikiProject Protected Areas was established just over a year ago. It has since gone quite a long way: from revising existing entries (uniting their nomenclature, sorting and categorising the content, adding GPS coordinates) and instituting automated article creation (so as to make writing of articles as easy for new editors as possible) to the creation of a comprehensive category tree on Wikimedia Commons. As of January 2012, our project has grown to 2,300 articles of varying quality but always with staple content and a standardised appearance. This has proved to be quite a milestone because as our activity began to show in recent changes and in community discussions, more and more experienced editors joined our project. However, Czech Wikipedia is just a small project with as few as 80-100 active editors. Thus, it was a question of time before all editors interested in nature and environment took part in our project. It reached a peak and further efforts to gain more members within Czech Wikipedia have been in vain.
We soon realized that there are just not enough Wikipedians willing to help us. Editors were overloaded with lots of other interesting projects and it was getting harder and harder to intrigue them in this particular one. We had to find an another way to attract new members. The most straightforward solution was to look for them outside Wikimedia projects, in public – so as to find new people and convince them to contribute. However, this meant that we had to learn how to successfully address the public. The environment of Wikipedia is not the best place for an advertisement, not to mention the emotions these approaches can evoke in the community. Fortunately, the Internet now offers an easy-to-use platform: social networks.
Social networks represent an easy and effective way to share information with readers, i.e., potential editors. They provide a unique opportunity to find your target group and supply them with news on whatever topic you like, while simultaneously giving background information about how Wikipedia works. This led us to establish fan accounts on two of the social networks most popular with Czechs (Facebook and Google+). These continue to attract recognition, with more than 400 fans so far. We regularly write about the project's latest good articles, new photos of protected areas, and other interesting news from the field of environmentalism. Simultaneously, we explain how Wikipedia works and encourage the fans to actively contribute to Wikipedia—we continually reassure them that contributing to our online encyclopedia is very simple and beneficial. We do our best to assist those who do decide to contribute, either by giving help directly or by correcting their work. Indeed, our effort slowly bears fruit: together with our fans, we have been able to correct several mistakes, gain new pictures of previously unphotographed protected areas and establish contact with other groups that have similar goals (such as the Czech GLAM initiative).
Nevertheless, social sites are not the all-powerful key to success of a WikiProject. It is crucial to actively grow in more directions. This was the reason why we decided to seek collaborations in the education sector. In the beginning of the 2011/2012 winter term, we set up a project with the renowned Institute for Environmental Studies at Charles University in Prague. Our WikiProject organised a seminar during which the students were supposed to contribute to Wikipedia. Thirty participating students picked one protected area each, taking pictures of it and improving the corresponding article. By the end of the term, the Czech Wikipedia was enriched with 30 high-quality articles mainly about Czech protected areas, but also covering the Finnish Kevo Protected Area and Kobuk Valley National Park in Alaska. The project also yielded dozens of photos of previously unmapped protected areas. The students played an active role in seminar, which proved to be crucial to the high quality of the outcome. However, the retention of students on Wikipedia is questionable, as they often ceased to contribute after they handed over their assignment (Editor's note: This effect has also been seen in student projects involving the English Wikipedia). However, in a couple of years, these students will be members of different social groups and undertaking a wide range of jobs, and whenever they come, they will remember good memories about Wikipedia and the knowledge of how it works. It might help us in the future to open different doors and keep our good name alive.
We also explore other ways of reaching potential editors – attending conferences, giving lectures and offering leaflets. A small game for people of all ages is one example of an unusual method of publicising our mission: together with other authors and using some pictures from Commons, we created a concentration game about the protected areas. The leaflet of the concentration game includes our logo, explanatory text about contributing to Wikipedia, and what our WikiProject aims to accomplish. We printed 3000 copies of the game, and many important environmental institutions helped us to distribute it (including Krkonoše Mountains National Park Administration and Czech Union for Nature Conservation). Currently, we are working on a short film about our efforts and organising open-air workshops with botanists (to improve our capabilities in this area). We try to be active in every possible way and we want the public to hear about us. We believe that this is the way to attract new Wikipedians – and thus enable further development of Wikipedia – rather than by just writing articles on our own.

How does this project compare with other projects on the Czech Wikipedia?

In my humble opinion, we are the most successful WikiProject on Czech Wikipedia, as the other successful WikiProjects – for example WikiProjekt Kosmonautika (WikiProject Astronautics) – mainly target the development of encyclopedic content and do not actively seek new editors. On the other hand, I understand that content production is important for Wikipedia and I really appreciate the work of all the WikiProjects that we have. However, I enjoy the diversity of activities in our WikiProject: we write articles, take pictures and attract new editors to join us!

Has your project taken inspiration from any other projects?

It partly builds on the WikiProjekt Fotografování (WikiProject Photography) I established in 2007. There I learned that it is possible to gather quite a large group of Wikipedians under one "flag" if you offer an interesting topic. However, at that time, we were not able to engage in outreach beyond Czech Wikipedia; hence why I established this new project. It must have interesting content not only for Wikipedians, but also for travelers and photographers. Our project has a lot in common (by having similar targets) as the worldwide GLAM movement, but we have had to walk most of the paths ourselves.

What can other projects learn from your experiences?

Mainly the methods using which we connect with our readers and share our problems and success stories with them. We use fan pages on Google+ and Facebook to discuss with them and to get their feedback. It helps us make our WikiProject better and more friendly for them and attract them to participate too. I already saw several Facebook fan pages from different Czech projects (such as Czech GLAM, the Ambassador program, and FČO) that probably follow in our tracks on social networks. Honestly, I am proud that we have served as an example and that we mark new ways for other Wikipedians!

Please share the successes and setbacks of using social media like Facebook and Google+ to promote the project. How frequently do you post updates? Have you been able to recruit new editors from social media websites?

I try to post updates every day and sometimes even several posts per day if I find something interesting or important. With these posts, I do not focus only on Wikipedia projects, because I think we have to offer interesting content in order to attract new fans (i.e. potential new editors). I also share news and videos from other sources and I just generally try to build a community of people interested in the environment. We can then add some information about Wikipedia or some of our challenges associated with our WikiProject to a much wider society of fans. And yes, we were able to encourage several people to join Wikipedia (though often only as one-time editors), who then mainly upload images of protected areas, memory trees or some interesting plants and animals that we were missing on Wikipedia. It usually is only small and short-term assistance, but we really appreciate it. Unfortunately, I can not report any new long-time editors joining Wikipedia because of the Facebook/Google+ fan pages, but I strongly believe that this is only a question of time.

What limitations have you encountered in using the various social media websites? Do you think other projects could use social media to attract attention and improve articles?

The main limitation is that people are afraid of editing Wikipedia ("press the edit button"…) and that we are not able to show them the editing of Wikipedia in person. The other point is that you never know what the reaction to your post will be. Will they be interested in it? Also, it is necessary to look for new posts on different topics. It is absolutely unthinkable to post the same link to an article every day. In a couple of days, it would be terribly boring for fans, so you have to be innovative. Despite all these disadvantages I strongly recommend that other projects use social networks as well because that way, you can easily reach Wikipedia readers and introduce them to our dreams, goals and stories about us.

What was the greatest benefit you saw from conducting the university seminars? What lessons have you learned from the classroom project that you can use to improve seminars for future semesters?

The greatest benefit for me was the opportunity to talk directly to students in the class, discuss their written articles, and provide prompt feedback. Students were also highly appreciative of the fact that they could ask about Wikipedia rules and that I corrected articles after they had written them. What really surprised me was the fact that students had invested more time to their task because they had known that their work would be read by other Wikipedia readers. It was clear that positive motivation and explanation of all the task steps were crucial to assure high-quality articles, because students thereby identified more with their work. What could be done better next time? We must be more strict about timekeeping during presentations. They will not be allowed to drag time during real conferences; students have to learn to plan their time.

How did your project create relationships with real-world institutions like the Krkonoše Mountains National Park Administration and the Czech Union for Nature Conservation?

Well, we tried to use non-official avenues: social networks, e-mails and the memory games which we printed. Most of the important institutions manage their fan pages on Facebook or, at least, some staff members have accounts. I commented on their posts several times with some additional info and links to our articles on Czech Wikipedia. Later, I wrote them e-mails or messages on social networks with an offer to distribute to them a printed copy of memory game about the protected areas. They agreed because it was kind of a present, and because Wikipedia is non-profit (as is widely known in the population). Now we have a good reputation within these institutions and it will be probably easier to negotiate with them in future. It is also great that people from these institutions provide us with contacts to other governmental organisations. Through this, we received access to an official photo archive of the Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic, and we are negotiating terms of cooperation and acceptance of the content.

Has aligning the project with these institutions caused any point of view concerns or political complications?

Because our partners are NGOs or government organisations focusing on nature protection, we do not have problems with political issues or accusations of POV. However, I cannot rule out that it will not happen in future.

Have you contributed to projects in other languages of Wikipedia like the English Wikipedia's WikiProject Czech Republic or French Wikipedia's Projet République Tchèque? What difficulties have you faced trying to translate articles from Czech to other languages and the other way around? What can be done to improve collaboration between different languages of Wikipedia?

I cannot speak for others, but I tried to post some posts to the talkpage of WikiProject Czech Republic with an offer that I can produce images from the Czech Republic; however, there has been no response. The penetration of our WikiProject Protected areas in the English Wikipedia is low, but this is probably because of the little significance Czech protected areas has for most foreigners. However, our activity has deeply affected Wikimedia Commons because of a deep re-categorization of all protected areas and the production of a whole new category system. I also transferred this system to English Wikipedia and as an experiment, I tried to translate one short article about a protected area (Řežabinec a Řežabinecké tůně). A very positive thing for us is that editors from the Slovak Wikipedia are translating our content very widely! My main problem in translation from Czech to English is that because of the minor significance of these articles on the English Wikipedia, nobody polishes my Czenglish (although that would be very welcome). How can cooperation be improved? A crucial step is making cross-wiki templates, because it is not easy to remember two sets of them. As a second idea, a group of editors from English Wikipedia should be established that would be interested in Czech protected areas because, then, translation of our articles would be much faster and easier.


Next week, we're going to rock your world. Until then, enjoy our previous singles in the archive.

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2012-03-19

Featured content on the upswing!

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By Mathew Townsend and Crisco 1492
This edition covers content promoted between 11 and 17 March 2012
A newly featured picture is a poster for The Mummy, a 1932 horror film directed by Karl Freund and released by Universal Studios. The most expensive American film poster, it fetched US$435,500 in 1997.
Electric stimulation was used to treat nervous disorders. In this 1862 photograph, electricity is used to stimulate facial muscles. From the new featured article on the British doctor, Golding Bird.
Lienzo de Tlaxcala image depicting Tlaxcalan soldiers leading a Spanish conquistador and a native porter, from the new featured article Spanish conquest of Guatemala.
An adult Common Tern brings a sand eel to a juvenile. From the newly featured article on this bird.
Alonzo Babers of the United States won gold medals in the 400 meters and the 4 × 400 meter relay. He is seen here with the gold medals around his neck. From the new featured list 1984 Summer Olympics medal table.
USS Ohio, the first in its class of ballistic missile submarines when ordered in 1974, undergoing an extensive overhaul to become a cruise missile carrier. From the newly featured list of Ohio class submarines.
Map showing the swelling of "the Bulge" as the German offensive progressed creating the nose-like salient during 16–25 December 1944, from the newly featured picture.
A newly featured picture is perhaps the first photograph of men drinking beer, circa 1844 in Scotland, by Hill & Adamson.

Eight featured articles were promoted this week:

  • Golding Bird (nom) by SpinningSpark. Golding Bird (1814-1854) became interested in chemistry as a child, studying on his own and eventually teaching other students; at age 14 he was given a license as an apothecary without taking the normally-required test. He then became active as a lecturer on medicine and a researcher. In 1838 he received an MD from the University of St Andrews, followed by a master's in arts in 1840. Bird, who was often ill, died at the age of 39. During his life, he helped pioneer the use of electricity for medical purposes and conducted extensive research into urine and kidney stones. A devout Christian, Bird often preached the need for medical students to pray and study Christianity, eventually founding the Christian Medical Association to further this goal.
  • James Garrard (nom) by Acdixon. James Garrard (1749–1822) was a farmer and Baptist minister who served as the second governor of Kentucky from 1796 to 1804. After serving in the Revolutionary War, he was chosen as a delegate to five of the ten statehood conventions that secured Kentucky's separation from Virginia and helped write the state's first constitution. Due to term limits imposed by the state constitution adopted in 1799, he was the last Kentucky governor elected to two consecutive terms until the restriction was eased by a 1992 amendment, allowing Paul E. Patton's re-election in 1999.
  • HMS Queen Mary (nom) by Sturmvogel 66. HMS Queen Mary was the last battlecruiser built by the Royal Navy before the First World War. The sole member of her class, Queen Mary shared many features with the Lion-class battlecruisers, including her eight 13.5-inch (343 mm) guns. She was completed in 1913 and in 1914 participated in the Battle of Heligoland Bight as part of the Grand Fleet. Her wreck was discovered in 1991 and rests in pieces, some of which are upside down, on the floor of the North Sea. It is designated as a protected place under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 as it is the grave of 1,266 officers and men.
  • Spanish conquest of Guatemala (nom) by Simon Burchell. The Spanish conquest of Guatemala was a conflict that furthered the Spanish colonization of the Americas within the territory of what became the modern country of Guatemala in Central America. Before the conquest, this territory contained a number of competing Mesoamerican kingdoms, the majority of which were Maya. The Spanish conquest of the Maya was a prolonged affair; the Maya kingdoms resisted integration into the Spanish Empire with such tenacity that their defeat took almost two centuries.
  • Noisy Miner (nom) by Casliber and Mdk572. The Noisy Miner (Manorina melanocephala) is a highly vocal bird in the honeyeater family Meliphagidae. Endemic to eastern and south-eastern Australia, the Miner primarily inhabits dry, open eucalypt forests that lack understory shrubs. It is divided into four subspecies, with the Tasmanian subspecies recognised first. The birds are gregarious and territorial, living in groups of up to several hundred, with smaller subgroups occasionally formed for specific tasks. The birds copulate in a frenzied communal event which can occur at any time of the year, with females laying an average of two to four eggs. Currently a protected species, the Miner's population has increased in recent years; its current conservation status is Least Concern.
  • St Cuthbert Gospel (nom) by Johnbod. The St Cuthbert Gospel, also known as the Stonyhurst Gospel or the St Cuthbert Gospel of St John, is a 7th-century pocket gospel book, written in Latin, which was probably placed in the tomb of Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne a few years after he died in 687. Its finely decorated leather binding is the earliest known Western book-binding to survive, and both the 94 vellum folios and the binding are in outstanding condition for a book of this age. With a page size of only 5.25 by 3.5 inches (13.3 × 8.9 cm), the St Cuthbert Gospel is one of the smallest surviving Anglo-Saxon manuscripts.
  • Common Tern (nom) by Jimfbleak. The Common Tern (Sterna hirundo) is a seabird of the tern family Sternidae. This bird has a circumpolar distribution; its four subspecies breed in temperate and subarctic regions of Europe, Asia and North America. It is strongly migratory, wintering in coastal tropical and subtropical regions. Breeding adults have light grey upperparts, white to very light grey underparts, a black cap, orange-red legs, and a narrow pointed bill. Depending on the subspecies, the bill may be mostly red with a black tip or all black. There are a number of similar species, including the partly sympatric Arctic Tern, which can be distinguished according to plumage details, leg and bill colour, or vocalisations.
  • United States Bicentennial coinage (nom) by Wehwalt. The United States Bicentennial coinage was a set of circulating commemorative coins, consisting of a quarter, half dollar and dollar struck by the United States Mint in 1975 and 1976. Regardless of when struck, each coin bears the double date 1776–1976 on the normal obverses for the Washington quarter, Kennedy half dollar and Eisenhower dollar. No coins dated 1975 of any of the three denominations were minted.

Six featured lists were promoted this week:

  • 1984 Summer Olympics medal table (nom) by Miyagawa. The 1984 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Los Angeles, California, United States, from 28 July to 12 August 1984. These Olympic Games had 6,829 athletes from 140 National Olympic Committees participating in a total of 221 events in 23 sports.
  • Liverpool F.C. league record by opponent (nom) by NapHit. Liverpool Football Club is an English association football club based in Liverpool, Merseyside, which competes in the top tier of English football, for the 2011–12 season. The team that Liverpool have met most in league competition are local arch-rivals Everton, against whom they have contested 186 league matches; having drawn 57 of these, Everton are also the side Liverpool have tied with most in league competition.
  • List of accolades received by David Lynch (nom) by Grapple X. David Keith Lynch (born January 20, 1946) is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound design. In the course of his career, Lynch has received multiple awards and nominations.
  • List of Ohio class submarines (nom) by Sp33dyphil. Named after its lead boat, the Ohio class of nuclear-powered submarines is, as of March 2012, serving with its sole operator, the United States Navy. Fourteen of the eighteen boats are ballistic missile submarines (SSBN), which, along with U.S. Air Force strategic bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles, constitute the nuclear-deterrent triad of the U.S. The remaining four have been converted from their initial roles as SSBNs to cruise-missile carriers.
  • Public holidays in Rhodesia (nom) by Cliftonian. Public holidays observed in Rhodesia (renamed Zimbabwe in 1980) were largely based around milestones in the country's short history. Annual holidays marked various aspects of the arrival of white people to the country during the 1880s and 1890s, as well as the unilateral declarations of independence (1965) and of republican government (1970). A number of Christian holidays were also observed according to custom.
  • List of heavy cruisers of Germany (nom) by Parsecboy. The German navies of the 1920s through 1945 – the Reichsmarine and later Kriegsmarine – built or planned a series of heavy cruisers starting in the late 1920s, initially classified as Panzerschiffe (armored ships). Four different designs – the Deutschland, D, P, and Admiral Hipper classes, comprising twenty-two ships in total – were prepared in the period, though only the three Deutschland-class ships and three of the five Admiral Hipper-class cruisers were built.

Nine featured pictures were promoted this week:

  • Film Poster for The Mummy (nom; related article), created by Karoly Grosz and nominated by Crisco 1492. One of the most expensive film posters in the world and the most expensive American film poster (pictured above), this advertisement for the 1932 film The Mummy (starring Boris Karloff among others) fetched US$435,500 in 1997. The horror film follows the attempts of a resurrected Egyptian mummy to find his lost love by mummifying a modern woman.
  • Map of German offensive at the Battle of the Bulge (nom; related article) by Grandiose and Matthewedwards. After an unsuccessful nomination in mid-February during which four edits were made, this new featured map passed unanimously. It depicts the movements of the German offensive at the start of the Battle of the Bulge from 16 to 25 December 1944; movements which created a nose-like protruding frontline.
  • Portrait of a Young Girl (nom; related article), created by Petrus Christus, digitized by Google Art Project and nominated by Crisco 1492. This is one of the last paintings completed by Netherlandish artist Petrus Christus. Executed in oil on oak panel c. 1470, the small portrait marks a stylistic advance in both Christus's work and the development of Netherlandish portraiture.
  • Aeroflot Airbus A330 in flight (nom; related article), created by Sergey Kustov and nominated by Russavia. The Airbus A330 is a wide-body twin-engine jet airliner which first flew on 2 November 1992. As of 29 February 2012, 854 had been built, with the first delivered to Air Inter on 17 January 1994. The new featured picture was taken as the Aeroflot-operated craft departed Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow.
  • Wandering Albatross in flight (nom; related article) by JJ Harrison. The second featured picture of this species (this image was promoted in December 2011), the new image shows a Wandering Albatross while flying east of the Tasman Peninsula. The species has the largest wingspan of any living bird, averaging from 2.51–3.50 m (8.2–11.5 ft), with a mean span of 3.1 m (10 ft) in one large colony.
  • Hollerith keypunch use (nom; related article) by an unknown author, restored by Mmxx and nominated by Eustress. Initially thought to have been taken in 1890 (no clear date was given by the source), later analysis showed that this featured picture was probably taken in the 1940s or 1950s. The image, held at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington D.C., depicts a woman using a Hollerith keypunch to enter census data similar to what was done in the 1890 US census.
  • Edinburgh Ale, 1844 (nom; related article), created by Hill & Adamson and nominated by Crisco 1492. The new featured picture, a salt print depicting James Ballantine, George William Bell, and David Octavius Hill drinking Edinburgh Ale, may date among the earliest photographs of people drinking beer. The ale itself has been described as "a potent fluid, which almost glued the lips of the drinker together, and of which few, therefore, could dispatch more than a bottle."
  • The Nude Maja (nom; related article), created by Francisco Goya and nominated by Crisco 1492. This new featured painting and the one below have a shared history. Goya originally painted his The Nude Maja (La maja desnuda) between 1797 and 1800. However, when first displayed it caused controversy for its explicit depiction of nudity; it is sometimes said to be the first clear depiction of female pubic hair in a large Western painting.
  • The Clothed Maja (nom; related article), created by Francisco Goya and nominated by Crisco 1492. Rather than paint over his existing painting, from 1798 and 1805 Goya worked to create a second, clothed figure. Today the paintings are shown together at the Museo del Prado. The featured picture nomination was stalled due to small watermarks pockmarking the images, but passed unopposed once they were removed.
The Nude Maja
The Nude Maja
The Clothed Maja
The Clothed Maja
These two new featured images by Spanish painter Francisco Goya have a shared history. The Nude Maja was painted first and met with public outcry upon release. Instead of painting over his work, Goya created The Clothed Maja, a separate painting. The two are held by the Museo del Prado and are usually displayed together.


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2012-03-19

Race and intelligence 'review' opened, Article titles at voting

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By Lord Roem

The Arbitration Committee chose to review one case this week, bringing the number of open cases to two.

Open cases

Race and intelligence review (Week 1)

For the first time in nearly five years, the Arbitration Committee voted to open a 'review' of a previous case. The review in question will cover conduct relating to the Race and intelligence arbitration case from 2010. Nine arbitrators voted in favor of opening the review, over the sole objection of arbitrator Kirill Lokshin, who argued that there was no reason to revive the scarcely used mechanism. A review was proposed as "a simplified form of a full case" after arbitrators had considered the alternative possibilities of opening a second case, ruling on the issue by summary motion, or leaving it to be resolved at Arbitration Enforcement. Roger Davies, the committee member who proposed the measure, described it as "the best compromise between a sprawling amendment/motion and a full case".

Pursuant to the review motion, the Committee will accept evidence on specific points concerning conduct of three specific editors. The timeframe for the evidence phase will be a shortened ten days and is to be directly followed by arbitrator discussion over a decision. This means there will be no workshop phase, where parties would typically present suggestions for their own principles or findings of fact.

Article titles and capitalization (Week 8)

This case was opened to review alleged disruptive editing on the Manual of Style (MoS) and other pages pertaining to article naming. Arbitrator David Fuchs posted a proposed decision last week. The proposals include a statement concerning the status of the MoS as well as a request for more structured discussion and consensus-building regarding the disputed pages in question. Specific findings of fact are also suggested concerning the conduct of a few disruptive editors.

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2012-03-19

Bugmeister to leave at end of May, but developers keen to "chart" a path ahead

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By Jarry1250

Measuring site performance: charts, charts and more charts

A chart from the Signpost a fortnight ago generated by new performance charting tool Graphite (left). It demonstrated a worrying drop in the parser cache hit rate, now partially resolved (right).

Few people think of performance charts when asked what they consider the most exciting element of developing and maintaining MediaWiki wikis, but it was the area chosen by Performance Engineer Asher Feldman to be the subject of his latest post on the Wikimedia blog.

"To make targeted improvements and to identify both success and regression, we need data. Lots of data", Feldman wrote. And it certainly seems that the amount of performance-related data being collected is on the rise. Whereas previous systems "tended to mask performance issues that only surface on certain pages, or are periodic", a new system based on real-time graphing system Graphite allows thousands of data points to be tracked over time. Feldman continued, "We know we have major work ahead of us to improve performance pain points experienced by our community of editors, and [this kind of] data will guide the way".

Although not all the data collected is available to the public due to potential security concerns, a smaller set of public dashboards is now available from gdash.wikimedia.org, though certain reports will show an artificial daily drop until several imminent fixes go live. The new site complements existing pages available from high-level site status.wikimedia.org and the more detailed ganglia.wikimedia.org; those with appropriate privileges can take advantage of a detailed GUI to manipulate charts and create arbitrary new visualisations from the available data points.

Bugmeister Mark Hershberger leaves Wikimedia Foundation

Hershberger's last day will be at the end of May; as this code review backlog chart of a similar period earlier this year shows, a lot can still change before then.

Mark Hershberger will be leaving his job as Bugmeister at the Wikimedia Foundation at the end of May (wikitech-l mailing list). Hershberger had originally taken on the role as a temporary one (see Signpost coverage), but has now held it for over a year, investigating, commenting on and resolving dozens of bugs in that time. He was also influential in handling the development cycle, particularly dealing with the particularly intractable problem of slow code review.

The role gave Hershberger (and will give his successor) the opportunity to interact with dozens of different developers and Wikimedians in general, a role he appears to have mastered but which could prove the downfall of potential successors. Accordingly, public comments have been full of praise for the soon-to-be-outgoing Bugmeister, a "friendly, approachable, ... enthusiastic and cheerful" member of the Wikimedia staff, according to Director of Platform Engineering Rob Lanphier, who announced the departure. "We will miss you," wrote one developer, whilst another noted how Hershberger had turned his "uninteresting job into something actually motivating. No bug was too stupid to take care of and research". Asked for his own comment, the WMF's first Bugmeister said that of everything he had directed his energies towards during his time in the role, he was "very happy" with his work establishing full pre-deployment testing on a Wikimedia Labs-based imitation wiki—testing which resulted in several bugs in MediaWiki 1.19 being caught far earlier than they might otherwise have been.

The WMF plans to "start recruiting for a new Bugmeister soon". With such a broad area of responsibility, it could well be a tricky post to fill on a permanent basis by the time of Hershberger's actual departure at the end of May. Indeed, the hiring process will be set against an already difficult backdrop of a Git migration and wholesale changes to the Wikimedia deployment process.

In brief

Signpost poll
Diff colours


Not all fixes may have gone live to WMF sites at the time of writing; some may not be scheduled to go live for many weeks.

  • OAuth: allowing third-parties apps to authenticate via Wikipedia: There was a discussion this week about implementing OAuth, "a standard protocol to... provide third-party tools (web or client) with granular access to private resources... [without] revealing usernames or passwords to the third-party tool". This would allow for micro-applications to perform actions on Wikipedia, such as editing, in the same way that apps can post on a user's behalf on Twitter and Facebook. Comments were largely supportive, although there were pleas to separate a more generic system from the specific OAuth details, to allow competitor formats to be supported in future. OpenID, a distinct but related system, was also mentioned as a possible superior alternative in some scenarios.
  • API etiquette: Pages related to so-called API "etiquette" were updated this week to make them easier to find (wikitech-l mailing list). The pages document what reasonable usage of the API (the "machine readable" version of a MediaWiki wiki's content) looks like: single-threaded and responsive to changes in lag, with fewer requests during peak periods. Lead Platform Architect Tim Starling warned in particular against multiple connections, especially since it is so "easy to write a server-side script which accidentally allows 100 concurrent connections to Wikimedia, when 100 people happen to use it at once, or if someone decides to try a DoS attack using the Toolserver as a proxy".
  • /* Working again */ after bug fix: A whole subset of section titles will once again appear in edit summaries following the resolution of bug #35051. The regression-causing bug (itself introduced as part of a fix for bug #32617), which related to section titles with trailing spaces, prevented their display in edit summaries in the familiar /* Section heading */ summary format, which provides helpful section links from history pages. A fix for trailing HTML comments may also be in the pipeline.
  • Bugzilla statuses to evolve: The status workflow of bugs filed with Bugzilla has been changed, and may change again shortly (wikitech-l mailing list). The change sees the default state of bugs changes from "NEW" to "UNCONFIRMED", which now precedes it; "NEW" may yet be changed to the more descriptive "CONFIRMED" and further tweaks to "in progress" statuses made. Reception to the change was mixed, with consensus seeming to be that it was a positive step, albeit one that did not necessarily address the key bottlenecks in the current process.

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