Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2015-03-04

Interview

Editor's note: eagle-eyed readers will have spotted that we promised an interview with Newyorkbrad for last week's Signpost. We were unfortunately unable to deliver the interview as planned, and it is instead below. Our apologies to Newyorkbrad and to any readers who may have been disappointed by the interview's absence last week.

In the first of what the author hopes will become a regular feature of the Arbitration report, the Signpost speaks to veteran arbitrator Newyorkbrad, who recently retired from the committee after almost seven years of arbitrating. The Signpost was keen to hear his thoughts on his time on the committee and on the past, present, and future of ArbCom.

Harry Mitchell: What motivated you to stand for election back in 2008? And to twice seek re-election?

• Newyorkbrad: Like almost every new user, I started editing Wikipedia in 2006 with the intention of working on articles. However, I quickly became aware that there was a back-office administrative apparatus to the site, including the arbitration pages. Although I wasn't a party to any arbitration cases, I began to comment on requests and to draft proposals for the workshop pages, which are open to any editor, not just the arbitrators. I also participated some on AN and ANI, making comments on disputes and how they might be resolved. And I started writing essays and thinking about some of the key issues facing the project, notably BLP issues.
• Some kind editors saw my work and suggested that I might make a good arbitrator. They suggested that I run in 2006, just a few months after I'd started editing, but it was too soon then. In January 2007, I passed RfA and became an administrator. Around the same time, I also became an arbitration clerk, meaning that I helped run the arbitration pages and assisted the arbs in maintaining them. (The procedures were simpler then, even though there were a lot more cases than there are now.)
• By the end of 2007, I thought I had enough experience to be a good arbitrator, so I ran in the election and was elected.
• I ran for reelection in 2010 because I was still enjoying the role of arbitrator (well, as much as anyone ever enjoys that role) and I thought I was doing a good job. The majority of the community was kind enough to agree with me. My decision to run again in 2012 was much harder, because by that point I'd been an arb for five years, which is plenty, but several editors I trust suggested that I should seek one more term and so I did. At that time, I vowed that my third term would be my last, and I never had second thoughts about that decision.

HJM: What do you think ArbCom does well? What does it do less well? Is there anything it does at present that you feel it shouldn't do at all?

• NYB: I think ArbCom has made some good decisions and some less-good decisions in most areas of its responsibilities. I wouldn't answer your question categorically with anything like "it does a good job on arbitration cases and a bad job on ban appeals and checkuser appointments," or the reverse, or anything like that based on categories of work. Like everyone else, I agree with some of the Committee's decisions over the past seven years and disagree with others.
• I also can't think of any categories of the Committee's work as to which I would say "why the heck is the ArbCom handling that? What were they (we) thinking when they took that on?" There are, however, areas of responsibility that have landed on the Committee's plate as a matter of default more than anything else. I doubt that any arbitrators would insist on holding on to these responsibilities if the WMF Office (in a couple of cases) or the En-WP community (in others) agreed to take over the area.

HJM: How effective do you think ArbCom is at resolving the wiki's most interminable conflicts?

• NYB: It's a mixed bag. Anyone can take a look at the list of the Committee's completed arbitration cases (found at
  WP:RFAR/C
  ) and think "this dispute seems really to have calmed down since this case was decided," or conversely, "the ArbCom decision doesn't seem to have made a dent in that one."
• One could potentially divide the Committee's cases into two broad categories, albeit with a good deal of overlap: one group dealing with specific editors (including admins), and the other group dealing with specific topic areas. If a case concerns one particular editor, it's comparatively easy to figure out whether that editor is still causing issues (if he or she is still editing), or whether he or she is missed and could have been saved (if the editor wound up being banned). In the case of topic-areas, ongoing contentiousness in the topic-area is often a function of the topic-area's real-world contentiousness today, not anything the ArbCom or Wikipedia does. Not to be flippant, but there will never be real peace on Ukraine until there is peace in Ukraine, and so forth.
• As I said when I wrote a book review for the Signpost last year, I think we have a project-wide myopia about evaluating the success of our dispute-resolution mechanisms. No one goes back, a couple of years after an ArbCom decision, and tries systematically to say "well, this approach seems to have done a good job of resolving this type of problem" or "that remedy was pretty much of a disaster." We learn anecdotally, and experientially, but there's no attempt to collate the experience systematically. I say that it's a project-wide myopia because there's not enough effort to learn from the everyday experiences in other dispute-resolution processes either. For example, there must be a way of synthesizing the collective experience of thousands of 3RR reports about whether blocking or protecting or chatting is the best way to solve an edit war—not only to immediately stop the back-and-forth, but to maximize the future good-faith contributions of both parties—but I've never seen it written up anywhere.

HJM: How has the committee changed over your seven-year tenure?

• NYB: The main change is that the case workload has decreased radically, because a lot of disputes that would have come to arbitration a few years ago are now resolved in other venues. I discussed that trend here a couple of years ago and it has continued since then. The result is that the Committee has fewer easy or straightforward cases these days, but only complicated morasses to try to help with.

HJM: How much time in an average week did you find yourself devoting to ArbCom business? Do you think the current workloads are too great?

• NYB: You refer to "an average week" but I'm not sure there really was such a thing. There were heavy weeks, such as when I was reviewing evidence and drafting a decision or when I was on the Ban Appeals Subcommittee (BASC) and there were a lot of ban appeals, and there were other weeks that were lighter. On average I might say 5 to 10 hours a week but that is just a guestimate. I don't think the current workload is as insuperable as some people would suggest, but it couldn't hurt to lessen it, as long as the responsibilities taken away were handed off to appropriately qualified and selected people.

HJM: Did you implement or contribute to any reforms during your tenure?

• NYB: I tried to emphasize the importance of being fair to all the participants in every case. I don't want to call that a "reform", which would suggest that previous arbitrators didn't care just as much as I and my colleagues did, but the arbitration process is complex enough that it's a useful thing to re-emphasize from time to time.
• I called a couple of times for trying to simplify the arbitration processes and pages. For the most part I failed miserably at that; there is still more "paperwork" involved in arbitration than I'd like. One of my (and some others') suggestions that was accepted was combining the "clarifications" and "amendments" pages, because we were wasting time worrying about whether a given request was for a clarification or an amendment. This was an improvement, though I wouldn't call it a "reform".
• I stood up for the principle that ArbCom has the authority to review and, if warranted, overturn a community ban or community sanctions decision. I simultaneously emphasized that we wouldn't often exercise that authority, but I do think it's important that there be some avenue of appeal from AN and ANI, which like any other decision-making venue can be fallible. I understand the reasons behind the proposals to remove BASC (ban appeals) work from the ArbCom's task-list, but I cannot support them unless there is a genuinely independent, high-level review board taking BASC's place. And even then, some appeals will still be resolvable only by ArbCom because non-public information is involved.
• (As a sidenote, I've never understood the wiki-maxim that AN and ANI "are not a part of the dispute resolution process." These days, they're where most of the complicated disputes get resolved—or, often enough, fail to get resolved.)

HJM: There has been significant discussion over the years about the possibility of arbitrators who have not previously been elected administrators. How would you feel about non-admin arbitrators?

• NYB: It's never bothered me that all of the arbitrators have been administrators, because that has been a collective community decision (as opposed, say, to having a rule that non-admins can't run in the election, which I'd oppose).
• I think that many voters in the election view adminship experience as proof that a candidate is committed to helping administer the project, and as providing a basis for evaluating the candidate's skills in doing administrative work, including dispute resolution. (I don't believe it has anything to do with creating a caste system among editors, as some critics have suggested.)
• On the other hand, it also wouldn't bother me if a non-administrator were elected. If that occurred, though, I think the community would need to agree to provide that arbitrator with the equivalent of adminship for the duration of his or her term (or else the candidate should launch an RfA right away, which he or she would certainly pass). I say this because there are rights available only to admins, most notably access to deleted revisions, that are necessary for working on some cases and appeals.

HJM: Is there anything you regret about your time on the committee? Any reform left undone, a decision that had unexpected repercussions? Anything you would do differently with the benefit of hindsight?

• NYB: Among other things, I regret the two major incidents in which large numbers of e-mails on the arbitrators' mailing lists were hacked or leaked and published on other websites. This obviously compromised the confidentiality of our discussions and of communications we received from others. We've taken every step we could think of to avoid any recurrence of this problem. (Incidentally, we still don't know who did it.)
• I regret a few of the hundreds of votes I cast on Committee decisions, though not very many.
• I regret a few of the times I was outvoted, and an editor was banned or an admin was desysopped who I thought need not have been. On the other hand, I was consistently viewed over my tenure as perhaps the most lenient arbitrator—there is truth to that perception, though at times it is oversold—and I probably was in error sometimes in voting to keep an editor around who created more dissension and disruption than we should be prepared to tolerate.
• I regret the two times, both early in my tenure, when I was talked out of a first draft of a controversial but necessary decision, and it soon became apparent I should have stuck to my guns. Long-time readers will know which cases I mean.
• I regret that I didn't get to serve full terms with some of my most qualified and knowledgeable colleagues. In an earlier draft of this answer I had mentioned a bunch of them by name, but I'm fearful of leaving someone out.
• I don't regret my decision to participate in the major Wikipedia criticism sites, which was very unusual for an arbitrator when I first showed up there—but I do regret a few times when I've found myself being blatantly trolled there, which didn't do the Committee or anyone else any good.
• And I apologize for the worst of my bad jokes.

HJM: What qualities do you think a prospective candidate in this year's elections should have?

• NYB: I think the community has elected very qualified arbitrators in recent elections, so I don't have much to add to whatever criteria the voters have been using.

HJM: What advice would you offer the remaining arbitrators, especially those who are just embarking on their first term?

• NYB: I don't have much unexpected advice for the new group of arbitrators, because they are settling into their roles very well. Although my term as an arbitrator expired last December 31, I remained on the mailing list during January, because I was still an active arbitrator on the GamerGate case. During that month, I was highly impressed with the energy level, commitment, and knowledge base of the new group of arbitrators, seven of whom were brand-new to the Committee. Early in the nominating process for the election, there had been concern that there wouldn't be enough well-qualified candidates to fill the nine seats, but that turned out not to be the case.
• A major piece of advice that I would give to the new arbitrators is to pace yourselves so as to avoid losing perspective and the possibility of premature burnout.
• Another piece of advice—which I struggle to follow myself—is to try to spend at least some of your wikitime in mainspace. That, and not the back-office apparatus, is what the project is about.

HJM: If you could change one thing about ArbCom, what would it be?

• NYB: Fewer interviews.

HJM: Where do you see ArbCom in five years' time? Ten years?

• NYB: It's hard to answer where I see ArbCom in five or ten years' time without knowing where Wikipedia itself will be in five or ten years' time. There will always need to be a dispute-resolution procedure of last resort, and having a Committee of experienced, community-elected people address the disputes is as good a system as anyone has been able to come up with thus far.

HJM: Would you stand for election again in the future or do you see your priorities changing?

• NYB: Given that I was active on GamerGate until it closed at the end of January, I've been fully off the Committee for just a month now—so it's premature for me to address whether I'd ever want to serve on it again. But since you ask, I have no plans to run for arbitrator again, and certainly not in the foreseeable future.
• In addition to leaving ArbCom, I've also relinquished my checkuser and oversight rights (which I had rarely used anyway), though I remain an active administrator. I expect I'll comment on an AE or ANI thread on occasion, especially if I believe I could offer a perspective that others might miss. But my plan is to focus my Wikipedia efforts on content for awhile, as I had planned and hoped to do all along.

HJM: Is there anything you'd like to add?

• NYB: I'd like to thank all the members of the community who elected me to the Committee three times, and who have said kind things to and about me during my service.
• Beyond that, nothing to add off the top of my head, though I'll keep an eye on the comments section below and will probably wind up writing more there.

This fortnight's business

Things appear to be settling down now that the new committee is in place and the traditional rush of cases at the start of the year is slowing. Only one case remains open at the time of writing; another was closed in the fortnight since the last report.

Infoboxes (review)

After a stall during the proposed decision phase, this review of 2013's

(where he regularly nominates infobox templates for deletion or merging) was in keeping with that remedy.

The arbitrators were satisfied that Pigsonthewing's conduct had improved since the disputes which precipitated the 2013 case—Courcelles (one of the drafting arbitrators) observed "I remember the 2013 case, and I honestly believe [Pigsonthewing]'s conduct is better [now] than it was back then"—but remained concerned that his conduct was still wanting. Arbitrator Yunshui, for example, saw "at least some comparatively recent instances of inflammatory behaviour [by Pigsonthewing], whether provoked or not". Remedies proposed included banning Pigsonthewing from any involvement with infoboxes anywhere on Wikipedia (opposed by all but the proposer on the grounds of Pigsonthewing's progress since 2013), discretionary sanctions on infoboxes (rejected because it was possibly out of scope for the review, and several arbitrators expressed concerns about its workability), and several more complicated restrictions on Pigsonthewing (rejected because of their complexity and concerns about workability). The final result was that all previous remedies against Pigsonthewing were vacated, and in their place Pigsonthewing:

• is indefinitely restricted from adding an infobox to any article;
• may be banned from further participation in any discussion by any uninvolved administrator, should he behave disruptively in the discussion; and
• may add infoboxes to articles which he creates, provided he does so within a fortnight of the article's creation.

Christianity and Sexuality

The proposed decision in this case was published on 2 March, four days ahead of the target date. The drafting arbitrators propose to sanction four editors for their part in the dispute, which has included edit-warring, failure to adhere to a neutral point of view, personal attacks, and possible sock-puppetry. At the time of writing, arbitrators are voting unanimously to site-ban two editors, while a package of restrictions for another editor are passing (after modifications) by eight votes to one and the committee is currently divided on whether the fourth editor should be admonished or subject to a similar set of restrictions. Arbitrators have begun voting on a motion to close, and the case is likely to be complete within a day or two of the publication of this week's Signpost.

Other business

• American politics: The amendment request regarding Arzel (talk · contribs) discussed in last fortnight's report resulted in a topic ban for Arzel.
• Eastern Europe: The committee overturned an out-of-process block ostensibly made in accordance with the discretionary sanctions on Eastern European topics, and advised the administrator responsible to better familiarise himself with the discretionary sanctions process.
• Wifione: A request to strike a principle from the Wifione case (which stated that ArbCom had "no mandate to sanction editors for paid editing as it is not prohibited by site policies") failed to gain sufficient support among arbitrators, and was archived.
• Toddst1: Last year's Toddst1 case was closed by motion after Toddst1 was desysopped for inactivity. Toddst1 indefinitely blocked himself and left Wikipedia while arbitrators were debating whether or not to accept a case about his administrative actions, as a result of which the case was suspended pending his return or desysop for inactivity.
• Functionary appointments: The Committee is inviting comments on candidates for checkuser and oversight permissions; the community consultation phase will remain open until 18 March.
  
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2015-03-04

Meet a paid editor

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By The ed17

Before being indefinitely blocked, FergusM1970 made more than 4600 edits on the English Wikipedia, spread over eight years. In the last two years, he was paid to edit several articles for clients that included the Venezuelan energy company Derwick Associates; Fergus maintains that this was his only step into paid advocacy, rather than paid editing, a distinction that the Signpost has drawn attention to previously. Fergus was banned in December 2014 amid allegations of advocating for pay on behalf of e-cigarettes. We spoke with him about his experiences.

---

The ed17: How long did you edit for pay on Wikimedia sites?

• FergusM1970: I edited for pay for around two years—pretty much since I started freelancing. It's a very common category of freelance job now.

Ed: Is FergusM1970 your first account? If not, how have you evaded scrutiny by the English Wikipedia's checkuser tool?

• Fergus: Yes, it was my main Wikipedia account. To be honest it never occurred to me to use a different account for paid edits; I wasn't aware that paid editing was an issue, as Wikipedia's rules are so tortuous that no normal editor actually bothers to learn most of them. That's why it's so easy for POV-pushers to use them as a club to beat editors with.

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Ed: Do you only operate on the English Wikipedia, and how many articles have you been compensated for editing?

• Fergus: I only operated on the English Wikipedia. I can't actually remember how many articles I was paid to edit; it was a pretty small percentage of my freelance writing work. Between a dozen and 20.

Ed: To broach a potentially taboo topic area, how much do you charge clients for creating or maintaining articles?

• Fergus: It would depend on what the client was looking for. To edit an existing article, anywhere between $50 and $100. To create a new one, $75–$150 depending on length. I'd charge extra to watchlist it, generally $75–$100 for three months. In that time I'd patrol edits and attempt to deal with any attempt to remove the article.

Ed: Have you consistently disclosed when you were editing for pay?

• Fergus: No, I didn't disclose that because up to the point where I started getting (frankly pretty unpleasant) emails from (Redacted) I wasn't aware I was supposed to.

Ed: If a client's preferred topic is not notable under Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, how do you proceed?

• Fergus: Early on I had a couple of articles deleted because they didn't meet
  WP:N
  . Later I started being a lot more discriminating and would tell clients up front that the article wouldn't stick. Often they asked if putting out a press release would help; I told them no, it wouldn't.

Ed: Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, has endorsed a so-called "bright line", which "is simply that if you are a paid advocate, you should disclose your conflict of interest and never edit article space directly. You are free to enter into a dialogue with the community on talk pages, and to suggest edits or even complete new articles or versions of articles by posting them in your user space." Is this a viable option for paid advocates?

• Fergus: I don't think paid advocacy is acceptable at all. I only did it once, because I was financially quite squeezed at the time, and felt distinctly uncomfortable about it.

Ed: In your opinion, how should the Wikimedia sites deal with paid editing and advocacy? Where should the proverbial line in the sand be drawn?

• Fergus: I don't see any problem whatsoever with paid editing. As long as the article meets the
  WP:MED cabal and its efforts to spread its influence into non-medical articles.
  
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2015-03-04

Kanye West rebranded; Wikipedia in court; editors for hire

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By Gamaliel and Andreas Kolbe

In brief

• So why don't you kill me?: Numerous news outlets are reporting that the domain loser.com now redirects to the Wikipedia article for rapper Kanye West. Page views on West's Wikipedia article skyrocketed to almost 250,000 views on March 2, up from less than 19 thousand the previous day. At the 57th Annual Grammy Awards on February 8, West leaped on stage to interrupt Album of the Year winner Beck, but a moment later left the stage without saying anything. Beck first achieved fame with the 1993 single "Loser"; the song's chorus is referenced in our headline. CBC News reports (March 2) that a Twitter user claims responsibility and said that she has owned the domain for 20 years. G
• I'll be there for Kim Jong-un: Wired published a long article (March 1) about activists who smuggle cultural products, including Western films and television shows like Friends, into North Korea on USB flash drives in an effort to destabilize the totalitarian military regime. It reports that one of the activist groups, the North Korea Strategy Center, "is working with the Wikimedia Foundation to put a North Korean-dialect version of Wikipedia on every flash drive it smuggles over." G
• Hong Kong government slammed for citing Wikipedia: The South China Morning Post reports (March 1) that Hong Kong's government "has been accused of using standards of sourcing that would shame an undergraduate student after citing information from Wikipedia in Legislative Council papers." A.K.
• Editors-for-hire on Wikipedia: The print edition of the Financial Times (February 27) featured an article on paid editing, with comments by the WMF's Katherine Maher, Michael Wood of Legalmorning, Dariusz Jemielniak and others. (The online version of the article is only available to FT subscribers.) A.K.
• Arrested for Wikipedia edit: The Toronto Sun reports (February 26) that a member of the Canadian Armed Forces has been arrested for an inappropriate edit to the article Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons and other online comments related to the case, according to Parsons' father. The case is also covered by Vice (February 26) and CBC News (February 27), which reports that "No charges have been laid, the man was released on several conditions and the investigation continues". A.K.
• Building Wikipedia: ArchDaily reports (February 25) on the #wikiD event created by ArchiteXX, an organization of female architects , to coincide with International Women's Day on March 8. Inspired by the 2013 essay "Unforgetting Women Architects: From the Pritzker to Wikipedia" by Professor Despina Stratigakos, it seeks to "write into wikipedia women designers, architects and all those involved in the creation of our built environment." G
• Online threats: The
  Irish Times reports (February 25) that an Irish former medical student was given a three-year suspended sentence for sending threatening letters to instructors at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland after he was refused readmission. The letters threatened to reveal confidential medical information about 1,300 patients by posting it on Wikipedia. G
• Wikipedia as sculpture: In an interview (February 25) with the
  Charleston City Paper, comedian Kyle Kinane was asked about the accuracy of some information about his family that appeared in his Wikipedia article. He said "Hey, man, what do you want to do, pull the curtain back on Wikipedia? I will say that Wikipedia, I never put that page up there, and I don't know how you access Wikipedia pages, but as long as it's nothing offensive or cruel to me or my family, I look at it like a living art project. I look at it like a literary sculpture that the public can access and augment at any time. So yeah, maybe my dad did sell beer at those events...When people are like, 'So, your grandfather was Lon Chaney Jr.'s stunt man?' I just go, 'Sure was, guy. Sure was.'" G
• How Wikipedia reminds me: In an interview (February 25) with
  Music Times, Nickelback guitarist Ryan Peake expressed surprise that he had no Wikipedia article. Peake said " The less I'm on the internet, the better! I truly do appreciate any kind of privacy I can get living in the spotlight. It doesn't bother me. It's kind of nice that nobody's paying attention. I don't feel slighted whatsoever." A Wikipedia article on Peake was created in December 2002 but it was edited to redirect to his band in April 2011. Attempts to re-create the article in December 2013 and May 2014 were reverted. On the day of the interview's publication, another editor turned the redirect into an article. G
  
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2015-03-04

Ploughing fields and trading horses with Rosa Bonheur

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By Hafspajen, Xanthomelanoussprog, WPPilot, Gamaliel, The ed17, and Adam Cuerden

This Signpost "Featured content" report covers material promoted from 15 to 21 February 2015. Text may be adapted from the respective articles and lists; see their page histories for attribution.

Featured articles

Two

featured articles

were promoted this week.

• Keen Johnson (nominated by Acdixon) Part of the nominator's long series of articles on Kentucky governors, Johnson edited several newspapers before running for lieutenant governor in the 1930s. In 1939, the governor resigned so that Johnson would appoint him to a Senate seat; Johnson won the subsequent election and governed Kentucky during the opening years of the Second World War. His later political career included a short stint as the first Undersecretary of Labor and an unsuccessful run for the US Senate in 1960. He died ten years later.
• Horace Greeley (nominated by Wehwalt) One of Wikipedia's vital articles, Greeley was the editor of the New York Tribune, which under his leadership became the highest circulating newspaper in the United States. In the decade before the American Civil War, the Tribune became a major force in politics and had a non-trivial role in helping Abraham Lincoln get elected. Greeley himself helped found the Republican Party and eventually ran for president in 1872, where he lost badly to former army general Ulysses S. Grant. Greeley died three weeks later, at which time Harper's Weekly wrote "Since the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, the death of no American has been so sincerely deplored as that of Horace Greeley; and its tragical circumstances have given a peculiarly affectionate pathos to all that has been said of him."

Featured lists

Four

featured lists

were promoted this week.

• Best Novel winners have been a Nigerian-American, an Israeli, an American-born Muslim convert, and a Somali-American. This particular category has avoided controversy and been pretty much what you'd expect: a mix of best of the year compilations and original theme anthologies. Living legend Ellen Datlow has racked up the most wins, eight out of thirty nominations, which is no surprise since she's a prolific anthologist and widely admired in the speculative fiction world. The most recent winners were two other legends in the field, Gardner Dozois and George R. R. Martin, for the original anthology Dangerous Women. This 2013 release was eagerly anticipated since it featured an original novella by Martin, "The Princess and the Queen", set in his A Song of Ice and Fire universe. And, yes, we mean Game of Thrones
  , if you've only seen the television version.
• action thriller Dhoom
  " in 2004.
• Fanaa (2006), and My Name Is Khan
  (2010).
• 77th Academy Awards (nominated by Birdienest81) The Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator won the most awards – five out of its eleven nominations – including Best Supporting Actress to Cate Blanchett for her portrayal of Katharine Hepburn, the first time an Oscar was given for a portrayal of a previous Oscar winner. But director Martin Scorsese was snubbed again and would not receive his due until two years later, for 2006's The Departed. Despite The Aviator's numerical superiority, though, this was really the year of Million Dollar Baby, a boxing film which swept the major categories: Best Picture, Best Director (Clint Eastwood), Best Actress (Hilary Swank), and Best Supporting Actor (Morgan Freeman). Jamie Foxx won Best Actor for his portrayal of Ray Charles in the film Ray.

• 
  Pope Julius II - I never had any pearl earrings, depressing.
  Maybe Dior has some that would suit my dress?
• 
  Thomas Gainsborough : - I need not any pearls,
  I got talent
• 
  Vermeer

Featured pictures

Thirty-eight

featured pictures

were promoted this week.

Mojave Spaceport of SpaceShipOne took place at 06:49am on 4 October 2004. Photographed by WPPilot

Marriage à-la-mode: 2. The Tête à Tête by William Hogarth

House of Blackheads

in Riga, Latvia, at dusk.

• Santissima Annunziata in Florence. Unfortunately, the painting was rather controversially restored in 2011, leading to two directors at the Louvre
  resigning.
• Castle by the River (created by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, nominated by Hafspajen) A very moody, charming image, painted by Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781–1841). The painting is full of lovely details – the target, the deer... Bit of a walk to get up to the castle, but I bet it'd be worth it. Schinkel was a German architect, city planner, and painter, known for his prolific production of buildings in a neo-classicist style. He was also known for his paintings, in Romantic style. The Napoleonic wars interfered with his work as architect, so he took up landscape painting while he was not able to work in his occupation, displaying a talent for the romantic delineation of natural scenery.
• Sanctuary of St Cyprian's Church, Nave of St Cyprian's Church, Ceiling of St Cyprian's Church, Rood screen of St Cyprian's Church (created and nominated by David Iliff.) There is no such church, all is faked. More seriously... St Cyprian's, Clarence Gate, near Regent's Park, Marylebone, London, was founded in 1866 by Father Charles Gutch, who wanted to run a church in the manner he saw fit. Its opening was the source of various very silly controversies to do with Father Gutch's "churchmanship", somewhat badly told in the article, and better told at the church website used as the article's main source. The church's article could certainly use some love by a copyeditor.
• Hillary Rodham Clinton (no longer in office), and Attorney General of the United States Eric Holder
  .
• Paris Salon and was then reworked until completed in 1855. Well, at least as complete as an artist will ever consider their work, anyway. It has been in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since 1887, when it was donated by Cornelius Vanderbilt II
  .
• Stockholm archipelago near Stockholm. It was originally constructed by the Swedish king Gustav Vasa in 1544 to defend Stockholm against shipborne attacks coming from the east. Today it houses the Swedish National Museum of Coastal Defence. The fortress was strategically situated on the main sea route to Stockholm to defend the city from naval attacks, and was attacked by the Danes in 1612 and the Russian navy in 1719. Since the mid 19th century, the fort became so rusty, unfashionable and outdated, that it was said the great Prussian Field Marshal Von Moltke
  was only ever seen to laugh twice, once when they told him his mother-in-law was dead and again when he saw Vaxholm Fort... He was a jolly fellow.
• House of the Blackheads (created and nominated by Diliff) House of the Blackheads is a building situated in the old town of Riga, Latvia. The building was originally erected in the 1300s for the Brotherhood of Blackheads, an oddly named guild for unmarried German merchants in Riga. The exact origin of the term 'blackhead' is unknown, though it is unlikely to be a reference to skin blemishes.
• Hospital at Scutari (created by William Simpson, restored and nominated by Adam Cuerden). The print "One of the wards in the hospital at Scutari" shows the Selimiye Barracks during the Crimean War, at which time they had been converted into a hospital. Florence Nightingale and thirty-eight volunteer nurses arrived there to find overworked staff delivering poor care to wounded soldiers; Nightingale's reformation of the hospital was a pivotal event in her creation of the modern field of nursing.
• CorrineSD) In a Pine Wood is a study of a young woman sitting in a chair reading a book in her hand, an attentive look on her face. The painting is painted by the Danish artist Christen Dalsgaard (1824–1907), and the image is an example of a style of Scandinavian painting whose themes focused on scenes close to home, in contrast to previous styles. The painting depicts a very typical Danish home interior from the time period. One of the pieces of furniture depicted has the number 1828 painted on it, suggesting that our author stopped writing the sentence at this point... The original title in Danish is: En læsende pige fra Salling, which translates as "a girl from Salling
  , reading", or, more literally, "a reading girl from Salling".
• SOPA and PIPA. (See Signpost coverage
  of the blackout.)
• The Umbrellas is a painting, completed by Pierre-Auguste Renoir between 1881 and 1886, which depicts a busy Parisian street in the rain, blue umbrellas dominating the upper part of the painting, and girls and women the rest. The charming young milliner's assistant is modeled by Suzanne Valadon, Renoir's lover and frequent model. Suzanne Valadon was also a painter herself, who became the first woman painter admitted to the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1894. She was also the mother of painter Maurice Utrillo
  .
• virginal, a type of early keyboard instrument similar to a harpsichord. Her home has a tiled floor, paintings on the wall, and some of the locally manufactured Delftware blue and white tiles of a type that appear in other Vermeer works. One painting depicted on the wall is a landscape and the other shows Cupid holding a card; neither have been definitely identified, but the second was probably painted by Caesar van Everdingen
  . Vermeer painted many women with virginals. There was an attempt to bring this concept to Scotland, and a large number of virginals were acquired, arriving in Inverness in the north of Scotland. Four and twenty virginals came down from Inverness, but when they came back, there were four and twenty less. Quite a disaster.
• foppery, poor parenting, and bad taste. In this case, it is an arranged marriage that was wrong from the beginning. The series starts with the early signs of a marriage that has already begun to break down, continuing to the young husband treating his syphilis
  he conrtacted in adultery, while the lawyer Silvertongue has an affair with his wife to the bitter end of this marriage, ending with both dead, leaving a child orphaned and suffering from syphilis inherited from his parents. Cheery!
• Ring-billed gull (created by Chris Woodrich , nominated by Crisco 1492) A portrait of a ring-billed gull, a species of sea gull found in much of North America. The eyes are yellow with red rims, and the short beak has a black ring around it.
• bladed weapons
  ; if you go there, swords and daggers are the souvenirs you should buy, providing you can get them back through customs. If possible, go on Easter as that is declared as a National Tourist Interest, and it is cerebrated with various processions, and religious and cultural events... Quite a spectacle.
• Crab on its Back (created by Vincent van Gogh and nominated by Crisco 1492) Crab on its Back is an 1888 oil painting by Vincent van Gogh. It is a still life of a crab lying on its back with a green background. The painting is in the permanent collection of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. This is not what you think of when you hear "van Gogh", and yet here it is. Honestly, it's a very original idea for a still life, even if it may have been derived from a Hokusai print...
• Equestrian Portrait of Charles I (created by Anthony van Dyck, nominated by SchroCat) This portrait of King Charles I of England is one of the masterpieces of Anthony van Dyck. Van Dyck, a Flemish Baroque painter with a name that causes many snickers among undergraduates, was a great success on the continent before becoming Principal Painter in Ordinary in the court of King Charles. His many portraits of Charles, his family, and his court, became the dominant influence on English portrait-painting for the next 150 years. This particular painting echoes works by Titian and Albrecht Dürer and can be found in the National Gallery in London.
• Portrait of a Young Woman is a painting by the Dutch Golden Age artist Johannes Vermeer. Because of the similar size and theme, it is often considered to be related to the artist's better-known Girl with a Pearl Earring. Both paintings depict young women who wear pearl earrings, have scarves draped over their head and shoulders, and are in front of a plain black background. In addition, it is likely that the creation of both works involved the use of a camera obscura
  . The lack of idealised beauty has led to a general belief that this work depicts a real person and was painted on commission.
• Villa Borghese
  in Rome, with high umbrella pines that stand out sharply against the magnificent sunset in the garden. An artist is leaning against a fallen tree while disturbed in his peace by some admirer. Long shadows can be spotted on the green grass.
• Kufic script from the Abbasid period. It originates from the Near East or North Africa in 8th–9th century and shows the Al-Fath Sura (Surah 48: 27–28). Kufic is the oldest calligraphic form of the various Arabic scripts and consists of a modified form of the old Nabataean script
  .
• John Philip Sousa (created by Elmer Chickering, restored and nominated by Adam Cuerden) John Philip Sousa was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era, known primarily for American military and patriotic marches. Because of his mastery of march composition, he is known as "The March King", or the "American March King" due to his British counterpart Kenneth J. Alford also being known by the former nickname. He became the leader of the U.S. Marine Band in 1880 and remained as its conductor until 1892. Upon leaving the Marines, he organized The Sousa Band, which toured from 1892 to 1931, performing at 15,623 concerts in America and around the world.
• Sufism, a branch of Islam
  .
• oxen and not bulls
  anymore...
• Protestant preachers. The chapel of the friary was converted to be the college's dining hall, and there is a large fish pond in the grounds, also part of the legacy of the friary. The pond is home to a colony of ducks
  . The college originally took only male students, first admitting female students in 1979. Emmanuel is one of the wealthier colleges at Cambridge, for which they give thanks with a recitation of the Oratio Post Cibum after every dinner:

Confiteantur tibi, Domine, omnia opera tua,
:et sancti tui benedicant te.
:Agimus tibi gratias, omnipotens Deus,
:pro universis beneficiis tuis,
:qui vivis et regnas Deus per omnia saecula saeculorum.

• Lindau Lighthouse (created Taxiarchos228 and nominated by Crisco 1492) The Lindau Lighthouse was built from 1853 to 1856 and has a clock in its façade. This lighthouse is the southernmost lighthouse in Germany, located in Lindau on Lake Constance. Nowadays the light is lit on demand by ships using radio signals. It is open to visitors and it is a popular subject for photographs, though most probably aren't as good as this one.
• pilot was Brian Binnie, while White Knight was piloted by Mike Melvill. It was the second competitive flight in the Ansari X Prize competition to demonstrate a non-governmental reusable manned spacecraft, and is hence also referred to as the X2 flight. To win the X Prize, a spacecraft needed to make two successful competitive flights within a fortnight. SpaceShipOne made a successful competitive flight on September 29, 2004, and so needed to make a second by October 13, 2004 in order to win. It was a successful flight, winning the X Prize. After the launch of the first flight, Mike Melvill
  approached our own WPPilot and gave him a handful of M&M's he had just taken into space, who promptly ate them and continued shooting photos :) & Still feeling a little spaced out to this day.
• romantic
  component in Gainsborough's artistic temperament.
• Portrait of Pope Julius II (created by Raphael, nominated by SchroCat) An oil painting from 1511, Portrait of Pope Julius II shows the Pope lost in thought. Raphael, through this much-copied portrait of Pope Julius II, set a standard for the painting of future popes. This papal portrait was hung at the pillars of the church of Santa Maria del Popolo on feast and high holy days. Giorgio Vasari, writing long after Julius' death, said that "it was so lifelike and true it frightened everyone who saw it, as if it were the living man himself". Several versions of the painting exist; one has a hanging in the background with a blue and gold textile, either woven silk or embroidery, with gold emblems in tear shaped light blue compartments against a dark blue background. The pope wears here a red velvet high-necked cape covering the neck and shoulders, trimmed with white fur, together with a fashionable red velvet men's cap. Below he wears a white, light, wide and loose silk robe with an especially flattering high waistline, Empire silhouette, with tight sleeves completely covering the wrists, falling loosely below, flowing in graceful folds down, with no buttons or tapes in the front. On his fingers he wears several golden rings with brilliant gemstones. However ... no pearls.
• As I Lay Dying (1930), Light in August (1932), and Absalom, Absalom! (1936) that are now staples of literature curriculums. Faulkner received the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature
  , which catapulted him to worldwide fame, something he was decidedly not happy about. He didn't even tell his own daughter, who learned of it from her high school principal.
• peonies, poppies, and honeysuckle among others. The painting was started by Albertus Jonas Brandt and finished by Eelke Jelles Eelkema. The painting is owned by the Rijksmuseum
  in Amsterdam.

• 
  Italian Landscape with Umbrella Pines - Hendrik Voogd
• 
  Flowers in a Terracotta Vase - Albertus Jonas Brandt and Eelke Jelles Eelkema
• 
  Castle by the River - Karl Friedrich Schinkel

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2015-03-04

Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

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By Wikimedia tech ambassadors

Editor's note: the Signpost has arranged to mirror Tech news from Meta-Wiki to supplement the long-form tech coverage in our infrequent Technology report..

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

• A Lua function to use Wikidata has changed. You need to update the pages that use it. [1]
• You can use the Content Translation tool on Wikipedia in Uzbek and Minangkabau. You need to enable it in your Beta options.
• You can now hide banners if you don't have an account. [2] [3]

Software changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since February 25. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from March 3. It will be on all Wikipedias from March 4 (calendar).
• You can use the Content Translation tool on Wikipedia in Punjabi and Kyrgyz. You can ask for the tool in other languages.
• Editing the fake blank line in VisualEditor is now simpler. This change also fixed a few bugs. [4] [5] [6] [7]
• The TemplateData editor now warns you if a related page already has TemplateData. [8]
• The TemplateData table now tells you if a template doesn't take any parameters. [9]
• A new feature allowing one to more easily link to sections within an article was deployed this week as a default setting. [10]

Meetings

• You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
• You can join the next weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on March 4 at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join technical meetings in France and Mexico this year. You will be able to ask for help if you can't pay yourself. [11]

Future changes

• You will be able to get a direct link for a section of a page. [12]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

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2015-03-04

Black History Month edit-a-thons tackle Wikipedia’s multicultural gaps

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By

Dorothy Howard

Editor's note: the Blog will be a recurring Signpost section that will highlight a recent post from the Wikimedia blog, run by the Wikimedia Foundation. This week's installment is written by Dorothy Howard, the Wikipedian-in-Residence at the Metropolitan New York Library Council.

The following content has been republished from the Wikimedia Blog. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author alone; responses and critical commentary are invited in the comments section. For more information on this partnership see our content guidelines.

Black History Month

Black History Month is celebrated annually in the United States in February, to commemorate the history of the African diaspora. For this occasion, Wikipedians worked together to honor black history and to address Wikipedia's multicultural gaps in the encyclopedia, hosting Wikipedia edit-a-thons throughout the United States, from February 1 to 28, 2015.

Black WikiHistory Month Edit-a-thons include:

• Edit-a-thon at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem
• AfroCROWD Edit-a-thon
  at the Brooklyn Public Library
• Events at Howard University in D.C.
• Edit-a-thon at NPR Central headquarters in D.C.
• Events at SUNY Purchase and Nashville

Maira Liriano, one of the key institutional organizers of the #BlackLives Matter Edit-a-thon in New York, summarized the goals of this project to to reporters at Innovation Trail: "There is a bias and a lack of people of color involved in creating Wikipedia and many subjects are also missing from Wikipedia. So events like today are in part to make people aware of that and then to empower them and give them the information they need to correct that bias."

To kick off this project, the New York #BlackLivesMatter Wikipedia Edit-a-thon was held on Saturday February 7th at the New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, New York. This event took place in the Aaron Douglas Reading Room of the Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division of the library. Satellite #BlackLivesMatter Edit-a-thons were held on February 7th at the SUNY Purchase College Library and the Nashville Public Library, and the AfroCROWD initiative kickoff event was held on February 7th and 8th at the Brooklyn Public Library Central Branch. Wikimedia D.C. also co-organized three events including: the First STEM Heroes Edit-a-thon at the White House and the NPR Black History Month Edit-a-thon on February 24th, as well as the Black History Month Edit-a-thon at Howard University on February 19th.

Libraries proved to be ideal places for these edit-a-thons. At the Aaron Douglas Reading Room, librarians located reference texts and provided suggestions for further research. A list of Wikipedia articles to edit and create was prepared for the Schomburg Center Edit-a-thon and used by many of the satellite events.

These events received wide press coverage from diverse news sources, including:

The New York Times The Huffington Post FastCompany Colorlines DNAInfo, Essence CBS Local

The Root NYDaily News Rue89 Our Time Press The Haitian Times Black Star News Kreyolicious.

Schomburg Center, New York City

The #BlackLivesMatter Edit-a-thon at the Schomburg Center was organized in collaboration with NYPL, the Metropolitan New York Library Council, Wikimedia NYC, Wireless Harlem, and the West Harlem Art Fund for the Black WikiHistory Month outreach campaign.

Over 50 experienced and beginning Wikipedians attended throughout the day, and almost every seat was filled.

The New York Edit-a-thon was an overwhelming success, which led to the creation of 19 new Wikipedia articles, including:

• Leonard Harper, producer/stager/choreographer in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance.
• Judy Dearing, American costume designer, dancer, and choreographer.
• Mildred Blount, American milliner, costume designer, and clothier.
• National Black Theatre, a non-profit cultural and educational corporation, and community-based theatre company.
• Ruth Jean Baskerville Bowen
  , first black female booking agent and the president of Queen Booking Corporation
• Harlem Book Fair, the United State’s largest African-American book fair.
• Maritcha Remond Lyons, educator, civic leader, feminist, and writer from Brooklyn, NY; first African American to graduate from Providence High School in Rhode Island in 1869.

AfroCROWD, Brooklyn

On February 7th and 8th in Brooklyn, kickoff events took place for a new initiative,

the Afro Free Culture Crowdsourcing Wikimedia (AfroCROWD)

, which seeks to increase the number of people of African descent who actively partake in the Wikimedia and free knowledge, culture and software movements. The workshops were open to all Afrodescendants, including but not limited to individuals who self-identify as African, African-American, Afro-Latino, Biracial, Black, Black-American, Caribbean, Garifuna, Haitian or West Indian.

Events were held at the Brooklyn Public Library. Wikipedia trainings and overviews were given in some of the many languages spoken by our target population: French, Garifuna, Haitian Kreyòl, Igbo, Yoruba, Spanish and Twi. Affiliate project pages such as WikiProject Haiti were also introduced -- and organizers announced the new Garifuna language Wikipedia incubator, the fruit of a collaboration between AfroCROWD and Wikimedia NYC.

Afrocrowd's next 3 events will be HaitiCROWD on 3/14, AfricaCROWD on 4/4 and AfrolatinoCROWD on 4/12. HaitiCROWD will focus on resources in the Haitian Kreyòl, French and English Wikipedias, as well as growing the Haitian Wikipedia, which is now available free of charge to many Haitians in Haiti through the Digicel/Wikimedia Foundation Wikipedia Zero initiative. The workshop series will culminate in an edit-a-thon on June 20th at the Brooklyn Public Library.

Here is a visual recap of the AfroCROWD kickoff event.

Events in Washington D.C.

Three Black History Month events were held in Washington D.C.; one at Howard University on February 19th, as well as the STEM Heroes Edit-a-thon at the White House (learn more) and another one at the National Public Radio (NPR) headquarters on Tuesday, February 24th.

The Howard University event led to the following additions to Wikipedia:

• Charles Henry Thompson. Added photograph.
• Jacob Carruthers. Added bibliography
• Violette Neatley Anderson. Added image.
• Houston Conwill. Entry expanded.
• Farish Street
  . New article created.

Nashville Public Library

The Nashville Public Library held "Our Story Matters Wikipedia Edit-a-thon" on Saturday February 7th. This was the first Editathon at Nashville Public Library and 11 enthusiastic editors attended, including 8 new users. Participants worked on these articles; African Americans in Tennessee and Callie House. Several articles were in the draft stage when the program ended, but will hopefully be completed soon.

SUNY Purchase

A #BlackLivesMatter Edit-a-thon was also held at SUNY Purchase, Westchester County, NY on Saturday February 7th.

We wish to thank all participants who made these edit-a-thons possible! It's really exciting to see so many new editors join forces to help fill the multicultural gaps in Wikipedia -- and honor black history together.

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