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12 March 2007

 

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2007-03-12

Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

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By Simetrical

New features

The sizes of old revisions are now displayed in page histories. (River Tarnell, T3723, r20221)

When visiting Special:Contributions directly, without any username provided, the user will now be given a form asking for a username (or to search for contributions of new accounts) instead of being given an error message. Also, the same form will appear at the top of Special:Contributions for any user, allowing the viewer to switch to other users' contributions easily. (Sui Min and Raimond Spekking; T11009; r20164, r20226, et al.)

Special:Popularpages will now show pages from any content namespace, not just the main namespace. (Some wikis have "content" namespaces that aren't the main namespace, such as the English Wikibooks' "Cookbook" namespace.) Special:Popularpages is not enabled on the English Wikipedia. (patch by Jim R. Wilson, T11231, r20275)

Special:Log/block, /delete, and /protect will now have links next to each entry to unblock, undelete, or change protection level, respectively. (Raimond Spekking and Sui Min, T8997 and T11117, r20293)

When viewing a diff of multiple revisions (such as this), clicking "undo" will now undo all the edits covered by the diff, not just the last. (Aaron Schulz, T10133, r20317)

After discussion on Wikitech-l, the addition of a checkered background behind transparent parts of images on image pages (as is common in image editors to distinguish transparent from white) was reversed. Users can still add it to their own stylesheets manually. (Erik Moeller, r20340)

Fixed bugs

Underlining in backlinks for references will now be immediately under the letter, not at the bottom of the entire line, for those with underlining enabled for links. (Raimond Spekking, T8906, r20190)

A coding error made in refactoring a function was fixed. The error could have led to error messages, and possibly the failure of either limitations of actions per user per unit time (e.g., a limited number of account creations per IP address per hour) or exemptions from such limitations. (Patch by Rob Church, T11216, r20210)

Usernames that look like IPv6 addresses are no longer allowed. MediaWiki does not yet support IPv6, but it probably will at some point in the indefinite future, at which point this will prevent conflicts. Standard IPv4 addresses have been invalid as usernames for a long time. (River Tarnell, r20242)

Page titles (and, therefore, user names) can no longer contain three consecutive tildes (~~~). They can therefore no longer interfere with the signature/date syntax. (Brion Vibber, T11223, r20274)

ImageMap tags will now work correctly with multiple polygons. (Brion Vibber, T11236, r20298)

Internationalization

Some updates were made to non-English messages, specifically:

Internationalization help is always appreciated! See m:Localization statistics for how complete the translations of languages you know are, and post any updates to Mediazilla.

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-03-12/Essay Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-03-12/Opinion

2007-03-12

News and notes

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By Ral315, Littlebtc, DAUCTER and Alex Bakharev

Wikimania 2007: Registration and Call for Participation

Wikimania 2007, the third annual international Wikimedia conference, will be held from 3 August to 5 August in Taipei, Taiwan at Chien Tan Overseas Youth Activity Center (CTOYAC). The technically-oriented preconference for developers, Hacking Days, will occur in the two days leading up to the conference. There are still two other events, Hacking Days Extra and Citizen Journalism Unconference, which will be held on 2 August.

Online registration for conference has opened, and will be closed on 30 July, with discounted rates for Wikimedia community members. Accommodation at CTOYAC is provided and the available time is 31 July - 5 August, and visa assistance for overseas travellers is available. See Registration page in official website for details.

On the other hand, the Call for Participation for Wikimania 2007 is out; submissions for posters, presentations, workshops, and discussion groups are being accepted now. The conference themes this year include Wikimedia Communities, Free Content, and Technical Infrastructure. Six types of submission are available. Nominations for speakers and speaker panels, and suggestions for other activities are welcome too. Details can be found in the official call for participation.

New article categorization bot

Many WikiPortals and WikiProjects have the "New Articles" feature: a section or a page where all newly created articles related to the project are supposed to be announced. When done properly it is a very usable feature: the project participants are the best people to weed out hoaxes and vanity articles, merge duplicates, polish new articles, and enjoy the newborn masterpieces. Unfortunately, digging out the related new articles is quite a chore that requires lurking through thousands of articles that appear everyday.

To facilitate this work Alex Bakharev has created a bot named AlexNewArtBot that does this work automatically. It "reads" the latest articles every night, checks them against some rules, and if they're found suitable for a project, includes them into the corresponding new articles list. The bot also compiles a list of suspected bad articles — entries that are likely attack or vanity articles.

Currently twenty "New Articles" lists are supported (see the bot's userpage) but more are planned. Ideally, every new article should go to at least one list to find readers and reviewers. If you are interested in collaboration to create such a feed for your project please contact Alex Bakharev.

Volunteer Coordinator position advertised

The Wikimedia Foundation has posted a job opening for a Volunteer Coordinator. The position, which would ideally be based in the Foundation's office in St. Petersburg, Florida, involves organizing and coordinating volunteer efforts to assist the Foundation in its day-to-day work. Either part-time or full-time work is possible.

Alexa ranks remain steady

Wikipedia's 3-month Alexa rank remains at 11th; however, daily ranks over the last week have fluctuated, ranking anywhere from 9th to 11th. Should growth remain steady, it appears that Wikipedia will break the Top 10 in the next month. By-country rankings show that in Germany, the site ranks 6th. Not including search engines, the site is the second-most popular site in Germany, behind eBay. Wikipedia ranks 7th in Colombia and the Philippines, 8th in the United States, 9th in Canada, Mexico, Spain, Singapore and the Netherlands, 10th in the United Kingdom and Australia, and 14th in France.

Briefly

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-03-12/Serendipity Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-03-12/Op-ed Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-03-12/In focus

2007-03-12

The Report on Lengthy Litigation

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By David Mestel

The Arbitration Committee opened one case this week, and closed four cases.

Closed cases

  • Occupation of Latvia: A case relating to the Occupation of Latvia 1940-1945 article. Several editors had disagreed over the title, scope, and content of the article. Some editors, notably Irpen, alleged that the issue was merely a content dispute (upon which the committee has traditionally declined to rule), but others, especially Constanz felt that there had been abuse of dispute tags,and possibly WP:NOR violations. As a result of the case, certain named parties were admonished for their behaviour and encouraged to enter into mediation, and the article was placed on article probation.
  • Philwelch: A case regarding the actions of Philwelch. A number of editors, principally Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington alleged that he has taken "very controversial" sysop actions. Philwelch has since been voluntarily desysopped. The principle that admins who are desysopped under controversial circumstances may have adminship restored only through the regular channels was refined to provide that an administrator who resigns while an arbitration case is pending will be deemed to have done so under circumstances of controversy, unless ArbCom decides otherwise. The committee determined that Philwelch's voluntarily desysopping took place under controversial circumstances and that he must reapply through RfA if he wishes to be considered for adminship again in the future.
  • Sathya Sai Baba 2: Thatcher131 alleged that Andries repeatedly added a link to an unreliable source to the Robert Priddy article, in violation of a remedy in a prior case on the subject, and that SSS108 had edit warred and exhibited signs of article ownership on the page. Both users denied the allegations. As a result of the case, Andries, Wikisunn, SSS108 and Freelanceresearch were banned from editing the article, and Ekantik was required to edit under one username only.

New case

  • InShaneee: A case involving the actions of Inshaneee. 81.179.115.188 (formerly Worldtraveller) alleges that InShaneee inappropriately blocked him in a dispute in which he was involved in violation of WP:BP, and that he responded agressively to criticism. InShaneee in his statement points to an apology admitting the block was premature, and denying any aggressive response.

Evidence phase

  • Falun Gong: A case regarding the conduct of various editors on the Falun Gong article. Olaf Stephanos and Asdfg12345 allege that Samuel Luo has edit-warred in removing pro-Falun Gong material from the article, while Luo, Tomananda and others allege that Stephanos, Asdfg and others have edit-warred (including page blanking) in removing anti-Falun Gong material.
  • Armenia-Azerbaijan: A case, brought by ex-arbitrator Dmcdevit, regarding a dispute between Armenian and Azerbaijani editors on a large number of articles.

Voting phase

  • Barrett v. Rosenthal: A case brought by Peter M. Dodge involving the actions of Ilena and Fyslee. According to Dodge, Ilena was initially reported to AN/I for "posting links to sites that some considered to be attack sites". Various users attempted to assist Ilena, but "This was sabotaged...when Fyslee posted a link to a site that attacked Ilena in a personal manner". The title of the case refers to Barrett v. Rosenthal, a decision of the Supreme Court of California, which ruled that internet users and providers were not liable for the republication of defamatory statements, which some editors believe provides protection for Wikipedia. It has been alleged that some editors were involved in the real-life litigation of the case. Fred Bauder has proposed remedies, which are under consideration, banning Ilena for one year, and prohibiting her and Fyslee from editing the articles in question.
  • Starwood: A case involving links to Starwood Festival-related articles from various pages. Paul Pigman, who brought the case, alleges that Rosencomet "persistently and systematically" added these links, perhaps to an extent that violates WP:SPAM, and raised allegations against several other editors, which they have denied. Fred Bauder has proposed a remedy, with the support of SimonP, cautioning Rosencomet "to avoid aggressive editing of articles when there is a question of conflict of interest".
  • Robert Prechter: A case regarding the behaviour of Rgfolsom and Smallbones on the Socionomics and Robert Prechter pages. Rgfolsom alleges that Smallbones has violated WP:NPOV, WP:CIVIL and WP:DR (by abusing the mediation process), and that he has added "smears, demonstrable falsehoods, and a calculated overemphasis on quotes of critics". In response, Smallbones alleges that Rgfolsom has violated WP:V and WP:NPOV by removing claims critical of Prechter, and adding claims complimentary to him, and WP:COI because he is one of Prechter's employees. Fred Bauder has proposed a remedy banning Smallbones from editing articles and talk pages relating to Prechter. It has the support of three arbitrators.

Under review

  • Waldorf education: In pursuance of a remedy passed in the initial case, Fred Bauder has initiated a review of all parties' behaviour, and has proposed a remedy banning Pete K from this and related articles indefinitely, which has been supported by Matthew Brown.

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-03-12/Humour

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