Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-02-16/SPV
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| Volume 5, Issue 7 | 16 February 2009 |
About the Signpost |
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A new leaf
This week, you'll notice several changes in the Signpost. Most significantly, Ral315 is ending his tenure as editor-in-chief. Ral315 managed the Signpost from September 2005 through December 2008, and was the driving force in keeping it up-to-date and comprehensive, enforcing an appropriate tone, and defining the paper's relationship to the community. On behalf of the many Wikipedians who have contributed to the Signpost during his tenure, I'd like to extend our deep thanks to Ral315 for all his hard work. I'm going to do my best to maintain the high standards Ral315, and Michael Snow before that, have set for the Signpost.
We're debuting a new feature that we hope to publish regularly: the Discussion report, a summary of the most significant ongoing discussions and polls of community-wide relevance. We welcome suggestions on how this feature could be improved, as well as tips on important discussions that slip through the cracks, or take place on other wikis but are still relevant to this community.
We also hope to improve our general coverage of other Wikimedia projects. Look for more news from other communities in future editions of "News and notes"—and as always, we depend on your tips and suggestions.
Finally, we are rolling out a new look for the Signpost, spearheaded by Pretzels. We will be tweaking the design over the next week or so, and we invite readers' input and bug reports on the Signpost talk page. We also welcome any suggestions readers have for improving the Signpost more generally.
Reader comments
Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year Awards begins first round of voting
On 12 February, the third annual Picture of the Year Awards at Wikimedia Commons began the first round of voting, which will last until 26 February. All editors with at least 200 edits before 1 January 2009 are eligible to vote.
Picture of the Year is a contest that seeks to celebrate the best content that has gone through Commons' Featured Picture process in the previous year. Begun by Alvesgaspar in late 2006, Picture of the Year has become a much-beloved tradition throughout Wikimedia projects. For 2008 there are 501 new Featured Pictures, compared to 514 in 2007 and 321 in 2006.
A few changes have been made this year, due to various problems that left no-one in the committee able to pull the project together. A new committee stepped in, and a simplified voting scheme - not using the anonymous, automated vote-counting of previous years - has been implemented. To both celebrate the various types of content that go into featured pictures, and to allow voting to be tallied more easily, awards will be given in a variety of categories this year, and the top 10% of each category will go on to compete for the overall Picture of the Year award.
Voters are allowed to vote for as many images as they like, and are encouraged to vote in as many of the award categories as they feel able to judge. Voting is done simply by going to the gallery, choosing the images that you like best, clicking on the "Vote" button below those images, and adding your name to the list of votes for that image.
The final round of voting will begin in early March, once all the votes from the previous round have been tallied and confirmed.
Winners in previous years
2006
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1st place: Aurora Borealis, by United States Air Force employee Senior Airman Joshua Strang (public domain) -
2nd place: Homeless man in Paris, by Eric Pouhier (CC-BY-SA-2.5) -
3rd place (tied): Blue Jay bird, by Mdf (GFDL) -
3rd place (tied): Hoverflies mating, by Fir0002 (GFDL)
2007
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1st place: Broadway Tower in Cotswolds, England, by Newton2 (CC-BY-2.5) -
2nd place: New York City at night, photographed using the HDR technique, by Paulo Barcellos Jr. (CC-BY-SA-2.0) -
3rd place: Red Squirrel with pronounced winter ear tufts in the Hofgarten in Düsseldorf, by Ray eye (CC-BY-SA-2.0-DE)
Reader comments
Flagged Revisions, historical image discovery, and more
Update on German Wikipedia Flagged Revisions
Predicting admin elections; studying flagged revision debates; classifying editor interactions; and collecting the Wikipedia literature
26 March 2012
Studying German flagged revisions, French library agreement, German court case
12 April 2010
Financial statements, discussions, milestones
8 March 2010
BLP deletions cause uproar
25 January 2010
Flagged revisions petitions, image donations, brief news
28 December 2009
Vibber resigns, Staff office hours, Flagged Revs, new research and more
28 September 2009
WikiTrust, Azerbaijan-Armenia edit wars
31 August 2009
An extended look at how we got to flagged protection and patrolled revisions
31 August 2009
Misleading media storm over flagged revisions
31 August 2009
Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
24 August 2009
New board member, flagged revisions, Eurovision interviews
25 May 2009
End of Encarta, flagged revisions poll, new image donation, and more
30 March 2009
Commons, conferences, and more
9 March 2009
Flagged Revisions, historical image discovery, and more
16 February 2009
Wikipedia in the news: Wikipedia's future, WikiDashboard, and "wiki-snobs"
8 February 2009
Wikipedia in the news: Flagged Revisions, Internet Explorer add-on
31 January 2009
Jimbo requests that developers turn on Flagged Revisions
24 January 2009
News and notes: Flagged Revisions and permissions proposals, hoax, milestones
10 January 2009
Sighted revisions introduced on the German Wikipedia
12 May 2008
Page creation for unregistered users likely to be reenabled
29 October 2007
Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
2 April 2007
The Seigenthaler incident: One year later
4 December 2006
Wikipedia in the news
2 October 2006
Single-user login, stable versioning planned soon
7 August 2006
As of 16 February 2009, the
Image restoration leads to new discovery
In the course of restoring a public domain photograph of the aftermath of the Wounded Knee Massacre—one of many high-quality scans freely available from the United States Library of Congress website—Wikipedian Durova discovered something that had gone unnoticed by curators: four dead bodies, barely visible before restoration, in the foreground of the image. The Library of Congress staff is updating their records to reflect the discovery. Durova reports their reply:
| “ | Upon viewing the high-res TIFF file we made of the file, the human remains are quite visible, indeed. Thank you very much for contacting us regarding this image, and for your interest in our collections. You can imagine that among a collection of 14 million items here, there are a lot of secrets waiting to be uncovered! | ” |
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Unrestored version: mislabeled scattered debris of camp in Library of Congress bibliographic notes. -
Restored version: four human remains in foreground partially wrapped in blankets. -
Detail from restored version: a face in profile, hand at right.
CSD:T1 repealed
One of the
Recent Changes Camp
RecentChangesCamp is being planned for February 20 – 22 in Portland, Oregon. The conference is an unconference focused on wikis, including wiki technology and communities. The conference has been an annual event since 2006; it is hosted by various members of the wiki community. Along with Wikimania and WikiSym, it is one of three ongoing annual wiki conferences. Everyone in a wiki community or who is interested in wikis is welcome to attend the event. To find out more, visit the RecentChangesCamp wiki.
Reader comments
Political tiff, error repeated in press, predictions of doom
UK Conservative Party edits Wikipedia entry to support leader's statements
On Wednesday, February 11, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, clashed over the age at which the Renaissance painter Titian died. Brown claimed he was 90, Cameron later claimed that he was 86. Within minutes, a user editing under the IP 194.203.158.97, which is registered to the British Conservative Party, changed Titian's year of death from 1576 to 1572 to back up Cameron's statement. This sparked a flurry of editing activity (both constructive and vandalism) over the next several days, including nearly 100 edits on February 11. The article's traffic also dramatically increased, as it was viewed more than 15000 times on February 11 alone, up from an average of roughly 1600 views per day earlier this month. In response to the incident, user Malcolmxl5 wrote on the IP's talk page, "I would advise people using this IP address to avoid editing subjects related to the Conservative Party in particular, and to UK politics in general. Such editing may be seen as compromising the neutrality of articles in these areas and risks causing public embarrassment outside of Wikipedia to the [Conservative] Party."
Wikipedia misinformation repeated in press, then cited by Wikipedia
In the German Wikipedia version of the article Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, about German politician Karl-Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg, an additional name (Wilhelm) was added, a mistake that was then widely reproduced in German television and print media. According to an anonymous report on Slashdot, based on a post on the German site BILDblog, the error was reverted on German Wikipedia in the meantime. However, it was subsequently reintroduced and backed up by the erroneous media reports caused by the original falsehood.
Wikipedia doomed to fail?
Following a pessimistic story from The Independent on February 3 (see last week's coverage), more pundits and Wikipedia observers from the academic world have been discussing Wikipedia's future and whether the project is sustainable.
According to Ars Technica, law professor Eric Goldman sees Wikipedia faced with a dilemma as its influence continues to spread but its core community stops growing to match. Wikipedia could either remain open and fall prey to vandalism and misinformation—Goldman cites the above Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg incident—or exert more control—for example, with Flagged Revisions—and slow the influx of new community members even further.
| “ | Wikipedia won't be the same a couple of years from now as it was a couple of years ago, but nothing ever is. | ” |
| — Joseph Reagle | ||
Andrew Lih, author of the upcoming book The Wikipedia Revolution: How a bunch of nobodies created the world’s greatest encyclopedia, sees the vitality of community waning already. On his blog, Lih laments the failure to keep up with new popular culture topics, long the community's strong suit. Until after his post, Wikipedia had no article on How's Your News?, a potentially controversial new American television show premiering on MTV. He also notes an instance of content loss through an undiscussed article merge. Lih concludes that "perhaps that’s Wikipedia’s long term fate as a product of a decimated crowd: a slow march towards being stale and conventional, not out of commission but omission."
Joseph Reagle, a scholar who recently completed a doctoral dissertation on the collaborative culture of Wikipedia, takes a more optimistic view: "I think Wikipedia will survive even though/if the number of contributors levels off and flag revisions are enabled. The latter feature might prompt a flurry of stories about how Wikipedia is over, but it might stem the flow of future stories about embarrassing vandalism. Wikipedia won't be the same a couple of years from now as it was a couple of years ago, but nothing ever is."
Reader comments
How busy was 2008?
Content review processes such as
Featured articles
In 2008, 719 articles were promoted to
A featured article candidate is open to review by the whole Wikipedia community. Editors can support the article's promotion, if they believe it meets all the
The number of open featured article candidacies thus depends on several factors: the rate of FAC nominations, how well the article satisfies the FA criteria, the number of reviewers and how frequently the FA director or delegate processes nominations. The above graph (to the right) shows the first two factors. The total number of nominations per month has gradually declined throughout 2008 (November was abnormally low in nominations), but the proportion of candidates being promoted has remained constant at around 55%. The graph to the left shows that the number of open FACs has remained relatively constant at approximately 40 during 2008. The large spike at the beginning of the year is the remnant of the backlog experienced at the end of 2007 which led to the appointment of SandyGeorgia as FAC delegate.[2] Smaller peaks, for example in December, are the result of a shortage of reviews; clear consensus is not reached, therefore FACs cannot be closed.
Articles can also lose featured status through the Featured article review process. Editors who believe an article no longer meets the featured article criteria can list it at FAR. Ideally one or more editors will take on the task of bringing it up to standard. The FAR process usually lasts longer than FAC, to allow these improvements to take place. The graph above shows the number of articles undergoing a featured article review has been gradually decreasing throughout 2008.
Featured lists
In 2008, 722 lists were promoted to
Good articles
The number of
The major difference between the Good and Featured article processes, apart from slightly less strict criteria, is that promotion to GA only requires a review from one editor who was not a significant contributor to the article. While this allows more rapid recognition of good quality articles (the monthly increase in GAs is three times that for FAs), here too demand for reviewers outstrips supply. The graph to the left shows that typically 75% of the nominations on the GAN page have not been reviewed; The remainder are mostly awaiting improvement to the satisfaction of the reviewer. From time to time
Peer review
In 2008, 2,090 articles had a
Notes
- ^ a b Source: Wikipedia:Featured article statistics
- ^ Notice of appointment: Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates, 26 November 2007
- ^ Source: Template:Featured list log
- ^ Source: Wikipedia:Good article statistics
Reader comments
WikiProject Gaelic games
Although a small WikiProject, the Gaelic games project serves a great array of sports native to Ireland. Gaelic games include Gaelic football and hurling, both of which generally take place in Ireland, the games' homeland. Despite its size, the project is quite active, as Gnevin tells us.
- Tell me about how you got involved with Wikipedia.
- I couldn't recall why I get involved, but a quick look back at my earliest edits found that I started by removing points of view, but at the time I didn't realise that was what I was doing. I was just looking at Gaelic Athletic Associationarticles and thinking, "hey, that's not right".
- What types of article do you generally edit in relation to the project, for example, players, clubs?
| “ | That's one of the joys of the Wikipedia project: you don't have to have a master's degree in English to help out. | ” |
| — Gnevin | ||
- Prose not being my strongest suit, I generally tend to stick to the project's categories and infoboxes; using AutoWikiBrowserto tidy and organise categories or improving the infoboxes and templates. That's one of the joys of the Wikipedia project: you don't have to have a master degree in English to help out. There are always things that need sorting or referencing, or whatever.
- What features of the project do you participate in?
- The project membership is small in number while the project has a large enough scope; it is all hands to the pumps, and I generally try to assist wherever I can. The other users in the project are very good editors, and every so often they or I will need minor help on a reference or will seek input to a stylistic change. As a whole I've found the project ticks over quite nicely without the need of article drives or a featured article of the week sort of thing.
- How did you hear about Gaelic games?
- Being Irish, where Gaelic games are the national sports, and living a stone's throw from Croke Park and Parnell Park, Gaelic games are hard to avoid. In Ireland the Gaelic Athletic Association is more than just a sporting organisation; it is a cultural one too, and its impact is felt in many corners of Irish life.
- How would a new user get involved with the Wikiproject?
- Well getting involved is easy, just edit North American GAA need work—perhaps they are local to international users. Alternatively, you may read the WikiProject talk pagesee what needs doing.
- Just for fun now—which is your favourite Gaelic game, and which team or nation do you support?
- Well, there isn't really a national side, however county and I support Dublin's Gaelic footballers first and foremost, but also have an interest in Dublin's hurlers.
Reader comments
Discussion Reports And Miscellaneous Articulations
The following is a brief overview of the current discussions taking place on the English Wikipedia.
Centralized discussions
- It was proposed to delete 4,867 category redirects that had been determined to be unused via bot processes. The proposal was met with general opposition to deletion. On February 13 the discussion was closed as keep; noting that if deletion of certain redirects is desired, they can be nominated for CfD just like any other category, but they are not speediable.
- New guidelines on the use of sports teams logos were proposed on January 12. The proposal was reformatted three times, each discussion steadily losing contributors. Due to the drop of contributors the Arbitration Committee was asked as to what the next venue of discussion should be; they advised that the discussion be taken to the Mediation Cabal. A case was opened on February 5 and is currently awaiting a mediator.
- A centralized discussion was opened regarding the place of "lists of unusual things" within Wikipedia. One viewpoint is that it's never possible to objectively define "unusual", and so these lists are inherently incapable of meeting our neutral point of view, and that they constitute Original Research as the inclusion of any given entry in one of these lists is in effect synthesis. Others argue against this, saying that the word "unusual" in this context is just a shorthand way of saying "meets the criteria for inclusion on this page", and that as long as those criteria are stated, we are not violating neutral point of view, but just exercising a collective editorial judgment on the way in which information is grouped together into articles.
- Straw poll: Allow moves to be marked as major edits
- There is an ongoing straw poll on whether users should be allowed to mark page moves as major (normal) edits. Currently, all page moves are marked as minor; it has been argued that some page moves are controversial and users should be able to decide if their page move is minor or major. The proposal has been met with general support. The poll is set to close on February 20.
- A discussion over a proposal to allow non-administrators to edit fully protected pages is currently ongoing. The proposal was spurred when an administrator from the German Wikipedia requested adminship so he could edit the English Wikipedia spam blacklist. The discussion was closed as successful, but many of those in opposition did not want to grant him more rights than he needed to edit that blacklist. There are currently three ongoing sub-discussions regarding if this proposal should come to fruition. The current discussions include: A new access category, similar to rollbacker or accountcreator, which grants editprotected rights and nothing else.; which has been met with equal support and oppose votes, A set of new access categories, similar to rollbacker or accountcreator, each of which grants editprotected rights to a particular namespace and nothing else.; that proposal has been met with mostly opposition, and a proposal to Leave things as-is; this has been met with a small fraction of the total votes.
- A BRFA is currently undergoing discussion as to whether a bot should automatically submit URLs recently added to Wikipedia to WebCite and then supplement the Wikipedia link with a link to the WebCite archive. The proposal has been met with both support and opposition; those opposing worry that the links will clutter articles and watch lists and proponents feel that the bot will be an effective tool against link rot. WebCite has commented on the BRFA in support of the idea.
- In a thread on the Arbitration Committee's noticeboard entitled "How to raise the tone of the wiki" and on various mailing lists, there has been much recent discussion about increasing incivility and personal attacks on Wikipedia. Discussion about ArbCom desysoping uncivil admins and the problem of incivility on English Wikipedia in general are being discussed. David Gerard indicated that Wikipedia has "a chronic ongoing civility problem" and that the Arbitration Committee should note "that Wikipedia:No personal attacks is in fact hard policy" which they will enforce. He proposed that the following wording be placed at RFAr or AC/N:
The Arbitration Committee invites cases and discussion of chronic ongoing violations of Wikipedia:No personal attacks, which is fundamental hard Wikipedia policy. Not one-offs and not (at this stage) mere incivility, but chronic ongoing personal attacks. Attempts to work through the problems (e.g. RFCs) will be expected to have been tried and failed before a case is brought.
- There is general agreement that incivility is an issue; however, there is no consensus on how or if the Committee should handle these issues as they arise nor for the above wording.
Proposals
- It was proposed by BLP editintro}}. It reads:
| This article must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons. Controversial material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced should not be added and if present, must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted or if there are other concerns relating to this policy, please report it on the biographies of living persons noticeboard. |
- The proposal was met with overall support from those contributing to the discussion. The proposed JavaScript was transferred to MediaWiki talk:Common.js where it is currently undergoing discussion on final implementation and code tweaks.
Requests for comment
- Although notability is a long-standing guideline, some users believe that it is time to reassess its appropriateness and meaning. This request for comment has been lead to by discussions at snowkeep, discussion 2) has general support, and discussion 3) has equal amounts of supporters and objectors. The discussion regarding replacing WP:N with two separate guidelines has been met with general opposition.
- It has been proposed to modify the section "Procedure for administrators" at CSDto include:
If an article is deleted under any of the applicable Criteria for Speedy Deletion, this deletion can only be restored via
WP:DRVdiscussion or via disciplinary discussion in the case of misuse of tools. Regular recreation of non-salted articles with new or improved content is allowed by any editors, and subjected to a regular process as if the article were entirely new, including further CSD if that is the case. Obvious mistakes and self-reversions do not require DRV.- The proposal has been met with general opposition.
- Proposal to make Wikipedia:Coatrack a guideline
- It has been proposed to make Wikipedia:Coatracka guideline. The discussions have resulted in general opposition to the promotion.
- Deletion review regarding indefinite hosting clause
- Discussion is currently ongoing as to whether the section of WP:UP#NOT"Copies of other pages" should be removed. The current consensus appears to be leaning towards removing any time limits on how long content can remain in userspace barring illegal or libelous content.
- Proposal to change wording of WP:ICONDECORATION
- A lengthy discussion is taking place over whether or not to reword one heading of Manual of Style (icons)from "Help the reader rather than decorate" to "Help the reader rather than merely decorate" to more accurately describe the purpose of the guideline. Some editors have argued that the current wording regarding the use of icons in articles is misleading, or that the entire policy should be scrapped. Also, an alternate wording of the section's first paragraph has been proposed:
Icons should not be used solely to improve the visual appearance of an article. Icons which do not provide extra information to a reader or improve the readability of long lists are usually just a distraction (example). Generally, infobox fields containing only one or two entries and articles where nationality is not important should not use flag icons.
- None of the proposals have consensus as of yet.
- There has been a proposal to modify the page on Frequently Asked Questions about Wikipedia's Neutral point of view policy regarding religion. The section under dispute reads:
Regarding terminology: Several words that have very specific meanings in studies of religion have different meanings in less formal contexts, e.g. fundamentalism and mythology. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia articles about religious topics should take care to use these words only in their formal senses in order to avoid causing unnecessary offense or misleading the reader. Conversely, editors should not avoid using terminology that has been established by the majority of the current reliable and notable sources on a topic out of sympathy for a particular point of view, or concern that readers may confuse the formal and informal meanings. Details about some particular terms can be found at
WP:WTA.- The argument is revolving around the use of the word myth in religious articles when another word is used in multiple reliable sources. Also in discussion is the use of the word where it is controversial and what standards should be set for its use in articles.
- A-Class assessments
- The assessment level A-Class is currently undergoing discussion; main points of the Rfc are how A-Class assessments and reviews should be handled, the placement of A-Class in the {{FilmWikiProjects have A-Class review systems placing them above GAs. Additionally, many WikiProjects don't use A-Class at all at this time due to the resources a proper review process takes to complete.
- Options for what should be done include: leaving A-Class as it is, up to each project separately; standardizing A-Class below GA-Class, or standardizing A-Class between GA and FA-Class. Also up for discussion is the possibility of making A-Class reviews project wide, rather than being covered by each WikiProject separately.
- Due to the high volume of participation in the discussions and the conflicting ideas it has been proposed to have a meeting on IRC scheduled for February 21 or 22 at 1900h UTC at #wikipedia-1.0. On discussion will be the possible restructuring of the grading scheme and the continued use of A-Class,.
- WikiProject Puerto Rico is trying to organize a style guide similar to WP:PURMOS. The Rfc is asking for the assistance of the wider community to help develop the guideline and to make it an official guideline.
- A discussion has started regarding ArbCom using mentorship as a "parole" alternative to banning. Under the proposed guideline, where one or more editors persistently fail to engage other editors or the editorial process appropriately, they may be placed under supervised editing; during which a designated mentor may, at their discretion, revert or refactor any edit from that editor, direct the cessation of a line or theme of discussion by that editor, or ban the editor for increasing periods of time from any or all articles in the specified areas. At the end of a specified period the mentor will submit a review and recommendation to the Arbitration Committee who will in turn amend the remedy as they see fit. Under the supplemental proposal editors placed under supervised editing as defined above are placed under a topic ban on the specified area for the duration of the remedy until and unless a mentor is found that is agreeable to both the editor and the Committee. The current wording of the supplement is supported by the Committee; the naming of the position as "mentor" is currently under dispute.
- After a straw poll showing informal support to make Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) a guideline; a request for comment has opened to try to get it officially adopted. There is currently a 50/50 split of supporters and objectors to the proposal. Common reasons for opposing include that there is not enough emphasis on the need for third party sources and that the proposal's wording is confusing or unclear. Supporters comments generally include that Wikipedia needs some form of governing fiction articles that is official and that this proposal is a good stepping stone.
- A discussion has been opened to receive community feedback regarding expectations of privacy as it relates to CheckUser and to receive feedback on uses of CheckUser, considered by the community, to be appropriate or inappropriate. This information will be used by the Review Board when it is officially appointed. As of publication the views of five users have been stated; while others comment on whether they agree with that user's opinion or not. Only one viewpoint currently has more opposition than support. The discussion is planned to close on March 1, 00:00 UTC, but may close at a different date at the discretion of the Audit Panel.
Reader comments
Approved this week
Administrators
Two editors were
).Bots
Five bots or bot tasks were approved to begin operating this week: RFC posting script (task request), Chrisbot (task request), Erik9bot (task request), Robert SkyBot (task request) and Legobot (task request).
Featured pages
Twelve articles were promoted to
Fourteen
).Five
No
The following featured articles were displayed on the Main Page this week as Today's featured article: Toa Payoh ritual murders, Buildings and architecture of Bristol, History of evolutionary thought, 300, Romeo and Juliet, Aldol reaction, Thomas Cranmer and Theramenes.
Former featured pages
One article was delisted this week: Kalimpong (nom).
Three
No
Featured media
The following featured pictures were displayed on the Main Page this week as picture of the day: Table d'hôte, Dark Small-branded Swift, Charles Darwin, Hilda Clark, Leucanthemum paludosum, Battle of Harper's Ferry, Vernon and Irene Castle and Mark Harmon.
No
No featured
Fifteen pictures were promoted to featured status this week and are shown below.
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Lexington class battlecruiser -
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New Holland Honeyeater -
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Black Phoebe
Reader comments
Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
This is a summary of recent technology and site configuration changes that affect the English Wikipedia. Note that some changes described here have not yet gone live as of press time; the English Wikipedia is currently running version 1.43.0-wmf.2 (ce9d259), 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
New features
- The magic words for namespaces and pagenames can now be used as parser functions to return the desired namespace or normalized title/title part for a given title. (r46662, bug 8249)
- GeSHi has been upgraded to r1402, providing syntax highlighting for additional languages. (r46666, bug 10967)
- Import and export functionality have been added to the API. (r46815, bug 17007)
- Revision and log suppression (RevisionDelete) is now enabled for oversighters, so that edit summaries and log entries can be hidden but are not completely purged from the database. This feature can be used in cases of vandalism, spam, and other abusive edits and actions.
Other news
- The Wikimedia Foundation has purchased 36 new application servers (with 8 cores at 2.5 GHz each). So far, 9 of the servers have been installed, making the page load on Wikipedia much quicker and helping alleviate site slow downs which have occurred at peak times when the servers had hit a CPU wall. With the new servers installed, the AJAX suggestions for searches have been re-enabled. [1]
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.
Reader comments
The Report on Lengthy Litigation
The
Evidence phase
- SemBubenny: A case about the communication behavior of SemBubenny (formerly Mikkalai), and his use of administrator tools in disputed deletions.
- Ayn Rand: A case about editorial behavior, such as alleged POV-pushing and bad faith, in relation to the Ayn Rand article. The Arbitration Committee accepted the case as they found that all other avenues of dispute resolution had failed to resolve the dispute.
- Date delinking: A case regarding the behavior of editors in the ongoing dispute relating to policy on linking dates in articles. An injunction has been issued prohibiting large-scale linking or delinking of dates until the case is resolved.
- Scientology: A case regarding behavioral problems in Scientology-related articles; the case is related to the prior case Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/COFS.
Voting
- Fringe science: A case initially filed about the behavior of ScienceApologist, but opened to look at editing in the entire area of fringe science, and the behavior of editors who are involved in the area of dispute. In a proposed decision now being voted on by arbitrators, Coren has proposed the creation of a new type of arbitration remedy, "supervised editing", which an editor may be placed under when he or she does not "engage other editors or the editorial process appropriately". A designated supervisor would be permitted to revert or refactor the edits of the other editor at his or her discretion, ban the editor from articles, or require that the editor propose any substantial content edits to the supervisor, who will make the edits on his behalf. After the period of supervision terminates, the supervisor will submit a report to the committee who will revise the remedy that placed the editor under supervision. Other remedies include placing ScienceApologist under such supervision, restricting Martinphi from editing policy and guideline pages, admonishing Pcarbonn, and issuing general warnings to behave and seek mediation. Arbitrator voting is in progress.
Reader comments