Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-02-25/SPV
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| Volume 4, Issue 9 | 25 February 2008 | About the Signpost |
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Signpost interview: Michael Snow
On February 13, Wikimedia Foundation Chair Florence Devouard announced the appointment of two new board members: Michael Snow, and developer Domas Mituzas. This week, the Signpost interviews Michael Snow; we hope to interview Mituzas for a later issue.
In her announcement, Devouard touted Snow's personal accomplishments, and his candidate statements in prior board elections:
The members of the board of trustees of Wikimedia Foundation have recently agreed to add two new board members, both being members of our community, for a term which will expire at next board elections (June-July 2008). The first is Michael Snow, long time editor of Wikipedia, and twice candidate to the board. Rather than presenting him, I recommend that you go read into detail his candidate statements, back in 2004 or in 2007. Michael is an American lawyer, has been the founder of the Signpost and is currently the Chair of the Communication Committee. He is noticeable (somehow) for being very calm and wise.
Wikipedia Signpost: First of all, Michael, congratulations on joining the Board of Trustees.
- Michael Snow: Thanks.
You've served as the chair of the Communications Committee, serve as an attorney and textbook writer in real-life, and, of course, were the original creator and editor of the Wikipedia Signpost. How will those experiences help you as a Board member?
- Being a lawyer gives me familiarity with some important issues for the Wikimedia Foundation (copyrights, licensing and contracts, operation of non-profits), and this training should help me contribute to the board's oversight of the organization. My background as a writer gives me an understanding of educational publishing, which broadly speaking ties in quite closely to Wikimedia's projects. Meanwhile, from my direct involvement in Wikimedia I've built up a knowledge of its history, culture, and values. I'm proud of the Signpost as an example of identifying a glaring need, then putting forth the initiative and effort required to fill that need. There are many challenges still being struggled with (Wikimedia or the Signpost, take either one), but I hope some of my future work can come close to that accomplishment.
Over the last 6-12 months, the Foundation has made considerable strides toward a larger organization, with more full-time employees handling Foundation duties. How do you think this process has gone so far? Do you have any concerns about this transition?
- In terms of the transition to professional support, my sense is that things are improving. I think it speaks volumes about the progress being made that recent staff turnover can be attributed entirely to the relocation to San Francisco, not organizational dysfunction. I have some concern about the amount of effort that's been needed to catch things up from the more dysfunctional period, such that only now is the staff getting to a position where it can even start to look forward and not backward. That's largely a surface evaluation, but it's about all I'm prepared to give at the moment.
When it comes to fundraising, what do you see as the Foundation's primary strength? What do you see as its primary weakness?
- So far, the obvious fundraising strength is the goodwill the projects have fostered, such that a large number of donors willingly respond to appeals for assistance. The cumulative effect of mostly small donations mirrors the impact of small individual contributions to the overall body of work on the projects. Financially this is only a base, however, not an inexhaustible resource, so it must be melded with other sources of funds.
- This brings us to the corresponding weakness in other areas: seeking grants, cultivating large donors, and developing outside sources of income. The number of truly substantial donations and grants in Wikimedia's history hardly needs more than one hand to count. For the people who control such funds, it is important that Wikimedia be a demonstrably capable steward of the money.
As a board member, how will you ensure a balance between openness and necessary privacy in board matters?
- Although the Wikimedia Foundation is not a government agency, one concept I think is worth looking at is how such bodies conduct business when required to have publicly open records or meetings. Generally they set aside certain material as privileged, or hold a portion of discussion in private, while making the rest available. It would help to determine in advance what needs to be discussed in "executive session", as this is often called, so that other things can be made public by default instead of having to be screened first.
- Beyond that, I'm open to inquiries from the community, as well as suggestions for how to address the issue. I also have some specific ideas in this area that I hope to implement in the near future.
Finally, your position expires in June. At this point, are you planning on running for a full two-year term?
- I'm just barely getting my feet wet, so I'd rather not try to plan for an election now. Then again, it's not that far away either, meaning I can't ignore it completely, so I'll attempt to outline my thought process and then get back to work. As you may know, I ran in the very first board election as well as the most recent one, but passed up the elections in between despite being urged by many people to run. This was because the time was not right for me and/or it did not seem right for Wikimedia. I don't know what things will look like in June, but unless I feel that both those criteria are met, I would pass.
Controversial RfA results in resysopping of ^demon
Editor's note: A full disclosure of my involvement in this RFA is available.
A controversial request for adminship resulted in the resysopping of ^demon this week. The closure, which occurred at an unusually low 63% support rate, drew a mixture of praise and criticism.
^demon first gained adminship in March 2007. While an administrator, he drew attention when he speedy-deleted Mzoli's in September. The deletion, which was overturned, with the article kept in a subsequent AFD, was scrutinized primarily because the author was Wikipedia founder and board member Jimbo Wales. During the AFD discussion, Wales said to ^demon,
"I was very disappointed to see your assumption of bad faith and insulting behavior on the Mzoli's deletion discussion."
^demon replied,
"With all due respect, I was merely pointing out that some users seem to place a higher importance on your edits over any others. Had this article not been authored by you, my speedy deletion never would have been overturned."
Another move criticized by some who opposed his reconfirmation RFA, was the nomination of Wikipedia:Requests for adminship for deletion. The MFD discussion was converted into a request for comment on the RfA process; this request for comment generated extensive discussion, but resulted in no real changes to the process.
^demon resigned adminship in December, indicating that he did not wish to retain his right to have sysop privileges automatically reinstated. At the time, he also indicated that "I wish to get back to editing, and keep it simple."
In his re-application for adminship, some concerns were raised, particularly about ^demon's civility and attitude; many users cited the opposing comments of Majorly ("Everytime I see ^demon do or say something, he seems pissed off at something"), and JayHenry ("A drama machine with consistently poor judgment"). In support of ^demon, MastCell noted that:
"The number of toes stepped on seems proportionate to the number of administrative actions taken here. Certainly there are some things that could have been handled better, but the standard here is not perfection ... He did good work; controversial decisions are not the same as abuse of the tools."
JoshuaZ added,
For most interactions I've had with ^demon I've disagreed with his opinions. And yes, he can sometimes be a bit extreme and sometimes makes hasty or poorly thought out decisions. That's why we have things like DRV. ^demon was a very competent admin who is clearly dedicated to the project.
Ryan Postlethwaite, who also supported ^demon, said,
^demon certainly wasn't the worst admin we had when he left, he's done some fantastic work with his tools. I do see some legitimate concerns in the oppose section, and I encourage ^demon to read these carefully before he takes any administrative action should this RfA succeed. All in all - the positves far outweight the negatives of ^demon regaining the tools.
The RfA ended on Saturday, with 63% support (89 users supporting, and 52 users opposing). That percentage falls below the usual range of 70-80%, where RFAs are usually left to bureaucrat consensus. In his closure, bureaucrat WJBscribe argued that this case offered special circumstances:
As my determination of consensus in this RfA strays to some extent from expected outcomes, I am going to provide a clear explanation of how I have reached it. I think this RfA must be considered in the context that it is a reconfirmation RfA of someone who relinquished their sysop access in uncontroversial circumstances and could have requested that it be restored at any point. Someone who has served as an administrator in controversial areas is likely to have gained critics and made enemies - I think there is an onus on those opposing to demonstrate more than simple disagreement with how actions have been taken by the candidate. I have read very carefully every word on this page over the last couple of hours and believe that although this discussion is outside the normal numerical promotion threshold there is nonetheless a consensus to promote. The community has long considered that the RfA process is based on discussion, not simply voting.
Some of the opposition focuses on disagreements with the candidate and objections to the type of sysop work he has undertaken, rather than giving solid examples of misconduct. Similarly there were a number focused on the fact that ^demon's actions had resulted in drama, but causing drama and being untrustworthy to exercise sysop responsibilities are two separate things. A number of opposers self identify as "weak", "regretful" or "reluctant" which I think also needs to be factored in. That involvement in unpopular work has played its part in the discussion is something picked up on by both supporting and opposing participants. Finally, I factored in those who were neutral - in this case being unwilling or able to raise objection to the restoration of tools to someone in a position to request them. I have concluded that restoring sysop access represents a correct interpretation of the arguments below having accorded due weight both to the strength of the opinions voiced and the numbers expressing them against the backdrop of this being a reconfirmation RfA.
The closure received support from many, including Acalamari:
"The closure of ^demon's RfA was a tough call to make, and you provided a long and detailed reason for your close. I trust your judgment, WJBscribe."
and AndonicO:
"I support WJBScribe in his decision; a tough call, but an appropriate one, IMO."
Many other users argued against the closure. Friday said,
If you were going to disregard the RFA, you should have closed it and promoted as soon as it opened. This worst-of-both-worlds approach doesn't make any sense to me at all. I think you should not promote anyone else. You have poor judgment.
Nick mallory added,
I think this was a mistake and will only cause trouble in the future. It also means calls for users not to 'pile on' in opposition to a candidate will be ignored although, presumably, had 150 people opposed here their wishes would have been disregarded because they didn't chime with those of the single person who made the decision. I'm aware that the process is not a vote but a rationale which says the voice of anyone who's had a bad experience with the candidate should be ignored for that reason is, to say the least, a strange one.
After his promotion, ^demon thanked WJBscribe, and noted,
"I will do my best not to let the community down and I have taken the comments by the opposers to heart, most certainly."
At 63% support, the RfA has the second-lowest percentage for a passing RFA, behind Carnildo 3 (61%), which was also an RFA for a former administrator, and also was a source of controversy. The latter situation was much different, however, as Carnildo had lost his adminship as part of an arbitration case.
Sockpuppeting administrator desysopped, community-banned
After concerns over an administrator's consistently poor blocking record, a checkuser was performed, the results of which showed extensive sockpuppeting. As a result, the administrator was summarily desysopped by the Arbitration Committee, and was community banned. Recent checkuser requests also show that the account was likely operated by a community-banned sockpuppeter.
Last week, we reported on the then-breaking story of the desysopping of Archtransit, after concerns about the user's administrative actions led to a checkuser, the results of which showed that Archtransit likely controlled many sockpuppets abusively. Archtransit, who became an administrator in January after a unanimous RfA, was criticized for a pattern of poor administrative actions, and was the subject of a request for comment, started on February 4. In the RFC, a series of blocks were criticized, including an arguably punitive 12-hour block against administrator Jehochman for a 1-minute block that Hochman made against Congolese fufu. Fufu has since been identified as a sockpuppet of Archtransit.
While some at the RFC argued for the removal or reconfirmation of Archtransit's adminship (John Reaves called Archtransit "unqualified for adminship", and Sarah said that she had "absolutely no trust or faith in Archtransit as a fellow administrator"), an arbitration case was not pursued, after Archtransit agreed to a mentoring agreement with administrators Ryan Postlethwaite and Riana.
During the course of the mentorship, Archtransit continued to make controversial blocks, despite being urged not to by mentors and other users. Meanwhile, checkusers privately reviewed evidence, concluding that Archtransit was the operator of numerous sockpuppets, many of which he had unblocked in prior disputes. The Arbitration Committee reviewed the information, and agreed to summarily desysop the account. Arbitrator FT2 made the announcement:
Since Archtransit became an administrator on 10 January, 2008, a number of issues have been raised concerning his blocks, unblocks, and other administrator actions. His conduct has been the subject of a request for comment at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Archtransit, where the views of Archtransit's conduct have been generally negative and his responses generally deemed unsatisfactory. Substantial community time has been expended in commenting on the disputed actions and seeking to improve Archtransit's performance as an administrator, including on ANI, on the RfC, and on Archtransit's talkpage. An admin mentor has expressed further concerns on his approaches, and it has appeared that the situation may lead to an arbitration case being presented with a view to desysopping.
Separate from the above, the Arbitration Committee has also received checkuser findings and extensive analysis of editing histories, and has independently concluded by an overwhelming weight of many types of credible evidence, that User:Fairchoice, User:Whoaslow, User:Bqwe123 and User:Lethte, who were variously blocked, unblocked or in on-wiki debate with Archtransit, are in fact sockpuppets of Archtransit himself. Archtransit was asked to comment on this finding privately and his answer was felt to be quite evasive, focussing on why it was better that an accusation should not be made, rather than evidence which might help refute it. Archtransit stated essentially as his defense, that if puppetry had occurred it would still not be a problem since (he felt) no false consensus was created. We do not agree with this reasoning. We conclude that abusive and disruptive sockpuppetry has taken place, involving at times gross misuse of tools. Our conclusion parallels the apparent view of the community that even apart from this, there is insufficient communal confidence in Archtransit's abilities to appropriately use the tools recently granted by the community.
Accordingly, Archtransit is desysopped. He may not seek to regain administrator status without the approval of the Arbitration Committee. All of the sockpuppet accounts will be blocked. Additionally, Archtransit may only edit Wikipedia through one account and any change of account name shall be reported to the committee.
Over the next few days, a community ban was proposed and implemented, and scrutiny of his prior actions continued. A list of suspected sock puppets grew; these accounts included Congolese fufu and that account's sockpuppets. It also came to light that Archtransit was likely an account operated by Dereks1x, a prolific sockpuppeter who was community banned in April 2007.
Two major print encyclopedias cease production
Over the last few weeks, two major encyclopedias announced the end of print production. First, Brockhaus, the most popular commercial German encyclopedia, announced that the current (21st) edition would likely be its last print edition. Then, last week, the annual French encyclopedia Quid announced the cancellation of a 2008 edition. Both encyclopedias mentioned Wikipedia in their announcements.
On February 13, Deutsche Welle reported that Brockhaus would place the encyclopedia on the Internet, as a free, ad-supported internet-based encyclopedia. The portal is expected to launch on April 15. An ad-free service would be provided to German schools, though it is not clear whether this product would be free to schools or fee-based.
The 21st edition of the Brockhaus encyclopedia had disappointing sales, due to the rising influence of Internet reference sites, including the German Wikipedia, which Deutsche Welle mentioned specifically as "[having] been seen as cutting into Brockhaus' profits." A company spokesperson indicated that with official figures yet to be finalized, the company is expecting 2007 losses of several million euros. The company may cut about 50 jobs in order to reduce costs.
The spokesperson argued that the encyclopedia would focus on quality, in order to compete with Wikipedia:
"We will clearly distinguish ourselves from providers like Wikipedia, by banking on relevance, accuracy and reliability. And, our information cannot be manipulated."
In December, German weekly news magazine Stern ran a cover story asking the question, "How good is Wikipedia?" (see archived story). The story pitted the German Wikipedia against Brockhaus on fifty subjects; the results showed a convincing victory for Wikipedia. On a scale of 1 to 6, with 1 being the best, Wikipedia received an average score of 1.7, while Brockhaus scored an average of 2.7. In this comparison, Wikipedia came out ahead on comprehensiveness, timeliness (whether the article is up-to-date), and, somewhat surprisingly, on accuracy. The only category that Wikipedia trailed Brockhaus in was that of readability.
Back in May 2005, Jimbo Wales appeared with Brockhaus CEO Alexander Bob at a press conference where they shared opinions on the future of encyclopedias, quality control, and whether they saw each other as competitors (see archived story). At the time, both agreed that the products were more complementary than competitive.
Meanwhile, British newspaper The Independent reported last week that the 2008 version of French encyclopedia Quid, "France's favorite encyclopaedia", had been canceled by its publisher, Robert Laffont, citing the inability of a print encyclopedia to compete with the information available on the Internet. The encyclopedia's founder and editor, Dominique Frémy, plans to issue a 2009 edition and is suing Laffont for breach of contract. While Frémy has already placed Quid online for free, he's also critical of open editing:
"Wikipedia got it wrong from the start by allowing anyone to change its articles. I am sure that people will go back to more structured kinds of encyclopaedias."
WikiWorld: "Hyperthymesia"
This WikiWorld rerun is from January 29, 2007, and has been in the news recently. Cartoonist Greg Williams' brother, Brad, was suspected of having this condition when this comic first ran, and has since been studied by doctors at the University of California, Irvine. His case is now one of three considered to be genuine by the Irvine staff studying hyperthymesia. Brad's case was reported by the Associated Press, and is the subject of an upcoming documentary, directed by his brother, Eric.
This week's WikiWorld comic uses text from "Hyperthymesia". The comic is released under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 license for use on Wikipedia and elsewhere.
News and notes
Wikimania 2008 Call for Participation
Wikimania 2008 representatives have issued their Call for Participation; submissions for presentations, workshops, panels, posters, open spaces, and artistic artifacts are currently being accepted. The deadline is March 16, and submissions, if accepted, will be presented at Wikimania 2008, to be held from July 17 through July 19, 2008, in Alexandria, Egypt.
Briefly
- The military history WikiProject's fifth coordinator election concludes on Thursday. Long-time lead coordinator Kirill Lokshin is not seeking re-election. Fifteen users are seeking nine co-coordinator spots; it is likely that one of the nine elected will hold a lead coordinator position.
- The English Wikipedia has reached 1,500 administrators.
- The Wikimedia Commons has reached 2,500,000 media files.
- The German Wikipedia has reached 2,000,000 total pages.
- The Esperanto Wikipedia has reached 1,500,000 edits.
- The Aymar Wikipedia has reached 500 articles.
- The Xhosa Wikipedia has reached 100 articles.
- The Thai Wikipedia has reached 1,000,000 edits.
- The Chechen Wikipedia has reached 200 articles.
In the news
Scots Wikipedia arouses discussion
Scots finds home on gey muckle website - The Scots-language Wikipedia has been described as an "embarrassing parody", and it contains articles on relatively unimportant individuals while more prominent individuals do not yet have an article. The Scots Wikipedia "gets people accustomed to reading a huge range of different things in Scots and not just literature", says the director of a Scots dictionary. However, Scots is said to suffer from inconsistent spelling, and it is disputed whether it is a language or a dialect.
Wikipedia blamed for French encyclopedia's downfall
France's favourite encyclopaedia falls victim to Wikipedia - Quid, a French encyclopedia, has had its 2008 edition cancelled because of a lack of interest. Sales are said to have fallen to 100,000 last year from a high of 400,000 in the mid-1990s. The demise of Quid has been taken to indicate that the Internet is affecting the viability of "reliable" sources of information, and the founder of Quid criticises Wikipedia for being written by unknown contributors. (See related article)
Other mentions
Other recent mentions in the online press include:
- The Wisdom of the Chaperones - The large majority of content on websites such as Digg and Wikipedia are created by a small number of people.
- Why Wikipedia's Competitors Are Failing, And Why Knol Might Not - Wikipedia's competitors have shown little interest in forking Wikipedia, whereas economic incentives in Google's Knol may encourage users to copy and paste from Wikipedia.
- Wikipediots: Who are these devoted, even obsessive contributors to Wikipedia? - Wikipedians are profiled and suggestions are made on how others can participate on the website.
WikiProject Report: Family Guy
WikiProject Family Guy is a WikiProject that aims to improve any of Wikipedia's articles related to the Family Guy television series. Started by PhattyFatt (talk · contribs) on 9 July 2006, it has grown to 24 listed participants, with some active participants not on the list.
We interviewed Qst (talk · contribs), one of the project's most active members.
- 1. What is the best way for users unfamiliar with Family Guy-related topics, new to Wikipedia, or just interested to get involved in the project?
- Well, there are several ways they can become involved in the project. We openly encourage all those who enjoy Family Guy or have an interest in joining the project to participate. There are no formal requirements to join and collaborate with existing members; rather, we openly encourage users to do this, especially new users, as it gives them a sense of acceptance and a place where they can contribute to Wikipedia and enjoy themselves at the same time with people of similar interests. The project talk page is always open to free-comment, and is monitored by myself and several other contributors to the project. For those who are unfamiliar with us, we hope they can using the existing pages (a directory of which can be found in Category:Family Guy and its sub-categories) to find the information they need. If they require personalised assistance or have a query which cannot be answered through other means, we operate a reference desk where editors can ask questions, although the gratitude goes to other, long-standing project members who have responded to comments on that board. Overall, we encourage people to participate in the project, we only ask they stay active on Family Guy related subjects if they add their name to the participant list. For those who edit Family Guy articles but have not added their username to the participant list we support, as they're still valued contributors, regardless of whether they are on the participant list.
- 2. What do you think about the progress the project has made during its time on Wikipedia?
- I'm very pleased about the progress that the project has made since its creation over a year ago. It now looks very good for future of the project, and I can honestly say I'm proud to be a member. It has made great progress and has a great group of editors, who I'm pleased to work with.
- 3. Are there any ongoing discussions pertaining to project issues or articles in the project's scope?
- No, currently, there are none. The project has few disputes, this I believe is because it has a small working group who all get along. But as far as I can remember, the project has had no discussions or disputes regarding that issue.
- 4. What are some of the project's most recent successes?
- Well, the project, until a few months ago, had no good articles, but several B-class articles which had been maintained to a high standard by other editors, most of which could pass through good article nominations quite easily. The project now has a total of #14 GA-class articles and #07 B-class articles. Unfortunately, the articles are subject to regular additions of unreferenced trivia, so watching these articles very carefully is important to make sure they do not become full of fancruft and spam, although I must credit Edgarde and TheBlazikenMaster for their exemplary work they have performed by keeping these articles clean and maintaining them. I believe the future looks good for the project and that it will continue that way, as long as it has its team of editors.
- 5. Do you feel that the Family Guy Project could ever reach a featured article? Considering the task force behind it?
- Yes, definitely. It may not happen quickly, but I do believe it is something what is likely to happen in the future. The task force for the project is small, but nonetheless, its enthusiastic and capable of taking on realistic challenges. Compared to other WikiProjects, e.g. The Simpsons we are small, but we don't let that get us down. So, yes, its definitely possible for the project to get a featured article eventually, its just a matter of when.
Dispatches: A snapshot of featured article categories
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As the featured article list has grown, so too have its categories, to a current total of 28. They are broad and are intended to keep the page clean and readable (compare the more extensive categorisation at Wikipedia:Good articles). User:Carcharoth has recently done a "snapshot" of the categories, creating a bar chart (at left) and a pie chart sorting the featured articles by type, as of February 23, 2008.
The single biggest category is Biology and medicine, with 161 articles. Articles related to the tree of life, particularly mammals, birds, and dinosaurs, are its largest component. Wikiproject Dinosaurs deserves particular recognition for consistently bringing articles to FAC. User:TimVickers has brought a number of biology topics to featured standard, including core subjects such as DNA and evolution. User:Casliber has been a frequent nominator of birds and dinosaurs, and has also worked on tree of life topics at the Featured article review.
The second and third largest categories are Media and Music, with 159 and 153 articles, respectively. The former is swollen by numerous movie and television related articles, and the latter by articles on contemporary bands, albums, and songs. Geography and places and History—two categories that cover a large percentage of Wikipedia's overall content—round out the top five. Biographies, which are currently spread across categories, account for 401 FAs and would be the single largest topic type if categorized together.
Discussion on the composition of the featured article list has not been without controversy. The relative over-representation of popular culture has become an issue at the request page for Today's Featured Article (TFA). With an ever increasing number of FAs, articles are waiting longer to be on the main page, and some (barring a change in main page structure) are likely never to appear. Video games and other popular culture articles have thus been opposed as TFA candidates over topic balance concerns, often leading to argument (e.g. this nomination). The four FA list categories that primarily absorb popular culture—Media, Music, Sports and recreation, and Video games—account for approximately 500 of the FAs, more than a quarter of the total. Not all of these articles are on contemporary subjects, and definitions of what constitute "popular culture" vary, but the FA list is clearly heavy on articles related to current, popular media. This is perhaps best underscored by the smaller categories: Religion, mysticism and mythology, Philosophy and psychology, and Mathematics—categories of core encyclopedic interest— account for just 3% of the featured articles.
Features and admins
Administrators
Six users were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: OhanaUnited (nom), EdJohnston (nom), Scarian (nom), Icestorm815 (nom), Gb (nom), and Parsecboy (nom). Another user, ^demon (nom), was also re-promoted to administrator status (see related story).
Bots
Four bots or bot tasks were approved to begin operating this week: OverlordQBot (task request), EBot IV (task request), SoxBot III (task request) and HBC AIV helperbot 8 (task request)
Featured pages
Fifteen articles were promoted to featured status last week: Harold Innis (nom), Tropical Storm Alberto (2006) (nom), Terra Nova Expedition (nom), Emily Dickinson (nom), Her Majesty's Theatre (nom), Atom (nom), Dwarf planet (nom), Coenwulf of Mercia (nom), 2008 Orange Bowl (nom), Dover Athletic F.C. (nom), History of Aston Villa F.C. (1961–present) (nom), History of Ipswich Town F.C. (nom), Hockey Hall of Fame (nom), Wii Sports (nom) and 2007 United States Air Force nuclear weapons incident (nom).
Twelve lists were promoted to featured status last week: List of National Park System areas in Maryland (nom), Degrassi: The Next Generation (season 2) (nom), The Simpsons (season 4) (nom), Vittorio Storaro filmography (nom), Depeche Mode discography (nom), List of countries in the Eurovision Song Contest (nom), List of members of the Swiss Federal Council (nom), San Diego Chargers seasons (nom), List of international cricket centuries by Sachin Tendulkar (nom), List of York City F.C. statistics and records (nom), List of tallest buildings and structures in Manchester (nom) and The Office (U.S. season 3) (nom).
No topics were featured last week.
Two portals were promoted to featured status last week: Portal:Internet (nom) (the 100th featured portal on the English Wikipedia) and Portal:Kentucky (nom).
The following featured articles were displayed last week on the Main Page as Today's featured article: Bobby Robson, Battle of the Gebora, Tech Tower, Bengali Language Movement, Rachel Carson, East End of London and Ban Ki-moon.
Former featured pages
Four articles were delisted recently:
- Cape Town (nom) - Delisted after a discussion regarding the underuse of citations for references that were in need of sources.
- Governor-General of India (nom) - Delisted after a discussion regarding the underuse of inline citations for the article.
- Monopoly (game) (nom) - Per several under-referenced sections and the need for a copy-edit to improve the prose of the article.
- History of Cape Colony from 1870 to 1899 (nom) - The removal was reliant upon the recent featured article review of History of Cape Colony from 1806 to 1870 (which was also delisted), due to the underuse of inline citations, therefore failing requirement 1c of the featured article criteria.
Featured media
The following featured pictures were displayed last week on the Main Page as picture of the day: David Suchet, Damselfly, Inelastic Collision, Mount Etna eruption and T206 Honus Wagner baseball card. One featured picture was demoted: Love or Duty
No sounds were featured last week.
Twenty-one pictures and one video were promoted to featured status last week and are shown below.
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Rome poster -
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Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
This is a summary of recent technology and site configuration changes that affect the English Wikipedia. Note that not all changes described here are necessarily live as of press time; the English Wikipedia is currently running version 1.44.0-wmf.5 (d64f667), 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
- Some pages had incorrect information stored about their protection status, making it impossible to unprotect them; unprotection of such pages is now possible. (r31243, bug 13132) (This change had problems and was reverted in r31276.)
New features
- A new magic word __HIDDENCAT__ has been added; if the template is placed on a category description page, it causes that category to not appear in the list of categories at the bottom of non-category pages it is included in. On-wiki discussion is at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#HIDDENCAT; this change, and the next, were mentioned in this mailing list post. (r31113, corrected in r31121 due to bug 13085)
- The way that redlinks (links to nonexistent pages, like this one) are handled has changed to be clearer to new users. Hovering a redlink now displays the text "(not yet written)" in the tooltip (this is customisable via MediaWiki:Red-link-title); clicking on a redlink acts as before, except that if a user clicks on a redlink to a page that they cannot create (for instance, an unregistered user clicking on a redlink to an article), instead of opening the edit page and an error message saying that editing is impossible, the ordinary view page for the nonexistent article will be opened. (r31140, bug 13058)
- It's now possible to create user groups that can edit fully-protected pages but not protect or unprotect pages. (Such user groups, however, have not yet been created; community consensus would likely be required for this, and to sort out the details of how it would be granted.) The feature was intended to allow the creation of bots that can edit protected pages. (r31247, bug 13137)
Other technology news
- Many users have had problems staying logged in this week; some pages showed the user in question as being logged out, when the user had logged in (even with 'Remember me' selected). This problem was reported in many different places (there is a list on the technical village pump). The cause of the problem has apparently now been fixed, but some pages may still cause the problem; if you come across a page that shows you to be logged out, try purging that page, which should permanently fix the problem for that page.
- There have been some changes in the way that parser functions and templates work in interface messages, to make them behave more like they do in other pages; therefore, any techniques that work around the old behaviour will no longer work, and should be updated.
Ongoing news
- Internationalisation has been continuing as normal; help is always appreciated! See mw:Localisation statistics for how complete the translations of languages you know are, and post any updates to bugzilla or use Betawiki.
The Report on Lengthy Litigation
The Arbitration Committee opened one new case this week, and closed no cases, leaving six currently open.
New case
- New World Translation: A case involving alleged misconduct in a content dispute on New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures.
Evidence phase
- Mantanmoreland: A case involving alleged sockpuppetry by Mantanmoreland, which he denies.
- Franco-Mongol alliance: A case involving alleged misconduct over a dispute on Franco-Mongol alliance and related articles.
Voting phase
- Episodes and characters 2: A case involving alleged continuing disruption of articles concerning television series episodes and characters, following on from a prior case. An injunction has been enacted halting certain editing activities on these articles until the case is resolved. Kirill Lokshin has proposed remedies prohibiting TTN from requesting merges, redirections or deletions of these articles, and instructing all parties to "cease engaging in editorial conflict and to work collaboratively to develop a generally accepted and applicable approach to the articles in question".
- Ehud Lesar: A case involving a dispute involving Ehud Lesar, with alleged sockpuppetry on his part and alleged harassment by Fedayee, Eupator and others. Sam Blacketer has proposed a remedy, with the support of four arbitrators, finding that there is insufficient evidence of sockpuppetry and overturning the block.
Motion to dismiss
- Highways 2: A case involving editing by NE2 on articles relating to WikiProject U.S. Roads, allegedly against consensus of other editors involved with that wikiproject. A remedy has been proposed, with the support of two arbitrators, counselling editors to consider contributing outside of disputed articles. UninvitedCompany has proposed a motion to dismiss the case as a content dispute.