Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2008-09-08
Wikimedia UK disbands, but may form again
On Thursday, August 28, Wikimedia UK Chair Alison Wheeler announced the dissolution of Wiki Educational Resources, Ltd. (the legal name of Wikimedia's UK chapter), citing problems with respect to their relationship with the Wikimedia Foundation, and issues with the UK banking system, which had made the institution unable to set up necessary bank accounts.
Concerns over Wiki Educational Resources (WER) were brought up in an August 13 e-mail to the WikimediaUK-l mailing list by Delphine Ménard, the Chapters Coordinator of the Wikimedia Foundation. In it, Ménard expressed concern over the delays in getting the organization off the ground, as well as an apparent lack of activity within the chapter, beyond a few core members:
I must say that as we watch all other chapters develop, all at their own pace, but definitely towards active and fruitful organisations, the Wikimedia Foundation is growing a bit concerned about the lack of development of Wikimedia UK. Although no-one in the Foundation is versed in UK law, and although we are sympathetic to all the problems that have been strewn on Wikimedia UK's way, we believe that it is time to really make things happen and push Wikimedia UK forward. ... At this stage, not having a functional Chapter in the UK is a fact that deprives the Wikimedia projects from a very important potential source of support, both financial and in various activities and partnerships. It is not a situation that we can allow to go on for another two years. ... Note that in the case that this "extended" AGM does not happen and/or does not come up with real proposals for solutions, the Wikimedia Foundation will have to reassess the status of WER in its current state as official Wikimedia Chapter, notably to be consistent with the chapters requirements and guidelines, which demand that chapters are supported by a group of active members of the community and not just 4 or 5.
Discussion followed, and some users began to submit applications for membership to the chapter, planning for the AGM. However, Wheeler decided to disband the organization after some thought, and after the immediate resignation of Director and Secretary Arkady Rose. She announced the decision in a post to the list:
As I had previously noted I was not planning on remaining a Director post the AGM and this change in your status now, rather than at the AGM when you [Arkady] had indicated to the Board that you also would not seek re-election, means that I must consider carefully what is in the best interests of both Wiki Educational Resources Ltd and of the future operations of Wikimedia UK.
Since WMUK was founded we have had one problem after another, some with respect to the relationship with WMF, some with the closer to home UK banking system that insists on basing judgements about a Corporation on the personal details of the members of its Board. One delayed us a year, the other all the way until now and with no immediate sight of a resolution.
To date, Wiki Educational Resources Ltd has received little external monies and these have been paid towards the expenses incurred in setting up the Company and carrying out its proper activities. Monies are still owed to various individuals however the Company has no assets to cover them and is, presently, unlikely to have a suitable income stream in the near future to do so.
I have been considering for some time what the best option for the future of WMUK is and, regrettably, I feel that Wiki Educational Resources Ltd, being the present holder of a contract with Wikimedia Foundation Inc for the use of the relevant trademarks, is not likely to be the best long-term holder of that contract in the current situation.
As such, I am proposing with immediate effect that Wiki Educational Resources Ltd be wound up in accordance with Article 8 of the Memorandum of Association and an EGM will be called to that end. The contract with the Wikimedia Foundation Inc will thus fall aside (it is not transferable) and there are not other assets or benefits to distributed or passed on to other organisations. ... Any applications received for membership are hereby declined. Thank you for your interest.
In the wake of its dissolution, many UK-based community members suggested starting the organization anew. A proposal, Wikimedia UK v2.0, has been made on the Meta-Wiki, setting a timetable for its reorganization and soliciting users to run for an initial board. As of press time, 10 candidates had volunteered for membership on the board.
Discussion on the structure of the new organization continues on the mailing list, and on the Wikimedia UK v2.0 talk page.
WikiWorld: "Helicopter parent"
- This comic originally appeared on August 27, 2007.
This week's WikiWorld comic uses text from "Helicopter parent". The comic is released under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 license for use on Wikipedia and elsewhere.
News and notes
Wikipedian Oded Schramm dies
Oded Schramm, an Israeli mathematician who worked at the University of California, San Diego and at Microsoft Research, died on Monday, September 1. Schramm fell to his death while climbing Guye Peak in Washington. Schramm invented stochastic Loewner evolution, a family of curves in probability theory and conformal geometry, and received many prestigious prizes for his work within the field.
On Wikipedia, OdedSchramm made nearly 900 edits, focusing on mathematics-related articles. Schramm created his account and made a few edits in 2005, but began editing actively in March 2008. He was 46 years old.
Meta-Wiki changes logo
After a poll showed over 80% support to change Meta-Wiki's logo to the "community logo" first introduced in 2006, the change was officially made this week. The main reason for changing the logo was over apparent confusion between Meta-Wiki and the Wikimedia Foundation, which shared the same logo. Another benefit to the change is that the new logo has been released into the public domain; the Wikimedia Foundation-based logo, meanwhile, was copyrighted by the Foundation and could not be used elsewhere without an assertion of fair use. Former Foundation Chair Florence Devouard emphasized that the public domain license was intentional, in order to allow the community freedom over the logo.
The newer logo retains the green, blue and red color scheme of the old logo, but instead of featuring a stylized person, it features a globe, emphasizing the worldwide nature of the Meta-Wiki. It has been used on other community sites as well, including Planet Wikimedia.
Briefly
- The German Wikipedia has reached 800,000 articles.
- The English and French Wiktionaries have both reached 900,000 articles.
- The French Wikipedia has reached 700,000 articles.
- The Georgian Wiktionary has reached 100 entries.
- The Polish Wikinews has reached 8,000 articles.
- The Kapampangan Wikipedia has reached 6,000 articles.
- The Spanish Wikisource has reached 38,000 pages.
In the news
Wikimedia: maturing and professionalising
Wikimedia pegs future on education, not profit (24 August 2008, San Francisco Chronicle)
Sue Gardner, Wikimedia's executive director, expresses surprise at the misunderstandings that people have about Wikimedia. As a charity, Wikimedia is not seeking to profit from the billions of dollars that some say could be earned from placing advertisements on its projects' websites. Recently, Wikimedia moved its headquarters to San Francisco, and the move, Gardner says, was because of the area's "tech talent"; the organisation's core staff has now increased to 21. Jimmy Wales credits Gardner with professionalising Wikimedia, instituting competent and sound management. Gardner's goals for the future include increasing participation, improving quality and making Wikipedia available in a variety of formats. On the other hand, Ed Chi, the creator of WikiDashboard, says that there has been a decline in interest in editing that does not bode well for the community.
US Vice-Presidential candidates with groomed articles
McCain camp touts Biden praise ahead of speech (27 August 2008, TheHill.com)
Bloggers have noticed changes to Joseph Biden's Wikipedia article as news of his Vice-Presidential nomination was leaking out. For instance, bloggers say that the section about his involvement in the 2004 presidential campaign was deleted. Also, details of Biden's undergraduate studies and allegations of plagiarism were said to have disappeared from his Wikipedia biography. The article raises the question of whether Barack Obama's campaign or the Democratic National Committee changed the article, given the timing of the edits.
Don’t Like Palin’s Wikipedia Story? Change It (31 August 2008, The New York Times)
A Wikipedia user called Young Trigg made a number of edits to Sarah Palin's article before the announcement of her nomination as the Republican Vice-Presidential candidate; the username is a reference to her infant son Trig. The edits, which added compelling stories about her upbringing and positive comments about her political career, were in fact rewarded with a Barnstar, and the editor made contact with other Wikipedia editors. In particular, Young Trigg asked an anonymous editor where he or she had heard about Palin being McCain's choice, possibly because, as the article suggests, Young Trigg had an interest in whether the news had leaked already. However, later, another user came along to tone down the additions that seem biased. Ultimately, Young Trigg, who denied relation to the Palin family, retired from Wikipedia.
Other mentions
Other recent mentions in the online press include:
- An interview with Wikipedia founder (and Crimson Tide fan) Jimmy Wales (ESPN The Magazine)
Jimmy Wales is quizzed on Wikipedia... and football. - Veoh Safe Harbor ruling could help YouTube in Viacom battle (28 August 2008, Ars Technica)
A judge uses Wikipedia to understand some of the technology in the case decided between Veoh and Io that has importance in relation to the DCMA "safe harbour" provisions. - Wikipedia vandals target West Australian politicians (29 August 2008, news.com.au)
As the Western Australia state election draws closer, politicians' articles are being vandalised, although some of the vandalism was reverted within minutes. - Asylum-Seeker Rejected Based On Wikipedia, Appeals Court Reverts (2 September 2008, Wired.com blogs)
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a ruling by the Board of Immigration Appeals that had found that a particular Ethiopian travel document was insufficient to prove someone's identity, a finding based on information gleaned from Wikipedia. - Just How Powerful Is Wikipedia? (SitePoint Blogs)
Entries on Wikipedia play a strong role in forming public perception, because Wikipedia articles appear very frequently on the first page of results when using search engines. - Arabic content in Wikipedia very weak, users to blame (1 September 2008, Daily News Egypt)
Users in Egypt gathered for the fourth regional Wikipedia Day, and the event resulted in a substantial increase in the number of Arabic-language articles, despite the Cairo venue reporting low attendance numbers. - The pros and cons of Wikipedia (3 September 2008, JG-TC.com)
University educators believe that part of their role is to ensure students develop critical thinking skills, and Wikipedia is good as a place to begin understanding a topic. - Wikipedia users divided over sexual material (9 September 2008, news.com.au)
Wikipedia, which contains graphical depictions of sexual acts, is said to have crossed the line; "Does that mean that when you type in 'murder', you should actually see someone murdering someone else?"
Dispatches: Featured topics
To attain FT status, an editor can nominate a set of articles at Featured topic candidates (FTC) where reviewers determine whether the set of articles meets the FT criteria. Unlike some Featured content processes, Featured topics has no official director; Arctic Gnome does the majority of promoting and closing topics, but any user can do so. Some topics grow over time; as new articles are created that are within the topic scope, they can be proposed for addition to the topic at FTC.
When a topic expands to include articles that are not of sufficient quality, or when existing articles lose their good or featured status, a Featured topic has a three-month grace period in which to bring the topic back into compliance with the Featured topic criteria. Topics which do not meet criteria due to a change in that criteria, rather than through a change in the topic, have a six-month grace period. If the topic is not successful in aligning with the criteria, the topic can then be nominated for removal. This removal process typically last two weeks.
Recent milestones
Just over three years since it was initially proposed, Featured topics includes 438 articles in 56 topics across 15 categories, with 16 of the topics having every article either featured class or ineligible to be featured because of limited subject matter or inherent instability. The project promotes on average just over three topics a month, adds onto existing topics once a month, and has demoted four topics in the past year, one of which was later re-added. August was a record-setting month, with seven new topics promoted and two additions added to existing topics. Around five and a half percent of all of Wikipedia's nearly 8000 Good articles, Featured articles, and Featured lists are included in Featured topics.
History
Featured topics was first proposed in August 2005 by Violet/riga. The proposal was to feature groups of articles meeting quality standards, to encourage editors to write "good collections" of articles across a whole topic. Under the first criterion, articles included in the topic did not have to be featured, but were required to be of "decent quality", such as passing a peer review with no major complaints. The articles in the topic also had to be grouped around a "central" article, to help tie them all together.
There were no more promotions until seven months later in November 2006, when a handful of other topics reached featured status. Of these new topics, only Star Wars episodes and Solar System are still featured. At the time, the FT criterion were vague; in December 2006, Arctic Gnome began to revamp the project, creating nomination guidelines and codifying the general consensus of rules for topics that had been formed over the previous year. This codification included the first minimum requirement of quality for the included articles, that they had to be rated at least a "B" on the WP:1.0 assessment scale. His efforts were timely; a week after he began, the project was nominated for deletion. Largely due to the recent changes, the project was kept, although various proposals were submitted to change the name of the project to remove the term 'Featured'.
In January 2007 the project began to take off: the topics were displayed in templates rather than as a short list; all articles were required to be Good articles, A class, Featured quality, or an audited article of limited subject matter; the requirements as to what constituted a "topic" were more set; and the project covered eight topics encompassing 81 articles. The minimum requirements and size of the project have continued to rise since then; by June 2007, the 150 articles across 15 topics could no longer be A-class, as it was deemed to not be defined well enough; and a month later it was added that the topics had to include a minimum number of featured articles or lists. In February 2008, as the project included 293 articles in 32 topics, the minimum requirement was raised again to 20 percent of the topic with a minimum of two featured elements, and on September 1 that percentage was raised to 25, as the process passed 50 topics and 400 articles.
Samples
The Canadian Election Timelines Featured topic consists of all Featured lists except for one item too limited to reach featured status:
The 2003 Atlantic hurricane season Featured topic includes several Good articles, Featured articles, and Featured lists, as well as a link to a subtopic which is itself a Featured topic:
Dispatches: Style guide and policy changes, August
Added to the Animals, plants, and other organisms:
- In articles that cover two or more taxonomic groups, a consistent style of capitalisation should be used for species names. This could involve the use of:
- scientific names throughout (often appropriate for specialist articles);
- title case for common names of species throughout (per WP:BIRDS) and lower case for non-specific names such as eagle or bilberry, which may work well for articles with a broad coverage of natural history; or
- lower-case initial letters for common names, which may work well for non-specialist articles that happen to refer to different taxonomic groups.
In quotations, the phrase between the commas was added:
- If there is an error in the original statement, use [sic], or {{sic}} (which produces [sic]), to show that it is not a transcription error.
The advice for where a quotation within a quotation results in jostling single and double quotation marks was changed:
- use the {{" '}}, {{' "}} and {{" ' "}} templates for this purpose:
...your right to say it.{{" ' "}}Do not use plain or non-breaking space ( ) characters, as this corrupts the semantic integrity of the article by mixing content and presentation.
In slash, this was added:
- Use / when representing mathematical division, except in the context of elementary arithmetic.
The guideline on spaced slashes was changed to this:
- A spaced slash may be used to separate items of which one or both have an internal space (the NY 31 east / NY 370 exit with the NY 31 east/NY 370 exit), or where it otherwise makes the reading easier.
A new section was added on Punctuation after formulas:
- A sentence that ends with a formula must have a period after the formula. If the conventional punctuation rules would require a question mark, comma, semicolon, or other punctuation at that place, the formula must be followed by that punctuation.
- The autoformatting of dates is now deprecated. Thus, month-day (October 13) and day-month (13 October) items, and month-day-year (October 13, 1998) and day-month-year (13 October 1998) items should be rendered in plain black text without square brackets.
- In an important step for UK-related articles, the main units are metric; previously, the main units could be metric or imperial. [Editorial note: apparently a fly-by edit by an anon, which has just been reverted 10 September.]]
A new subsection, Ampersand, was added:
- The ampersand (&) is a symbol representing the word and. In running prose, use it instead of and only if there is a good reason to do so. The ampersand may be used in tables and infoboxes where space is restricted. Retain it in the titles of business and works, and in quotations.
A new subsection, Scrolling lists, was added:
- Scrolling lists and boxes that toggle text display between hide and show are acceptable in infoboxes and navigation boxes, but should never be used in the article prose or references, because of issues with readability, accessibility, printing, and site mirroring. Additionally, such lists and boxes may not display properly in all web browsers.
This was added to Bulleted and numbered lists:
- Do not leave blank lines between items in a bulleted or numbered list unless there is a reason to do so, since this causes the Wiki software to interpret each list item as an individual list.
- In a major decision, the autoformatting of dates in Wikipedia's articles is now deprecated.
- The requirement of within-article consistency of date formatting was changed to recognise the widespread practice of using a different format for dates generated by citation templates:
- Dates in article body text should all have the same format.
- Dates in article references should all have the same format.
The exception for dates within quotations and titles remains.
- [Editorial comment: The issue of which date format should be chosen for articles without ties to an anglophone country is the subject of a poll starting September 10 at MOSNUM talk.]
- Use Template:birth date and age and Template:death date and age only if both dates are in the Gregorian calendar, due to possibly inaccurate calculations if the birth date is Julian and the death date is Gregorian, or the end of a Julian century intervenes.
- Clarification that the 1700s is 1700–1799; the 18th century is, by contrast, 1701–1800.
- New section, Fractions, beginning: "The template {{frac}} is available for representing common fractions."
- This was added to "Units":
- In the main body text, the first instances of units of measurements should be spelled out at least once, and perhaps several times for less familiar units before unit symbols are employed. For instance, one should write “…the typical batch is 250 kilograms…” before one later writes “…and then 15 kg of emulsifier is added.” For less common units of measure, editors should not employ unit symbols without first showing the unit symbol parenthetically after the first use of the full unit name. [Note: there's a little more in the last sentence that I don't quote; I'm following the AP Stylebook convention here of not using an ellipsis; the fact that the period is outside the quotes means that I'm not making any representation whether there was a period there or not.] "For reasons of legibility, the preferred symbol for the unprefixed liter is upper-case L."
- In the same subsection, the recommendation to use superscript markup rather than superscript characters was strengthened.
- In an important decision, this was added to Units and symbols often written incorrectly
- "For reasons of legibility, the preferred symbol for the unprefixed liter is upper-case L [not lower-case as permitted until now]."
- The list of "low added-value" links that should be avoided without reason was expanded to include "the names of geographical locations that are likely to be well-known to English-speakers should generally not be linked where, in the context, they are unlikely to be confused with other locations of the same name, and the linked article would not specifically add to readers' understanding of the topic at hand—this includes the names of: countries such as United States, UK, Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, India, Russia, China, Germany, France and Italy, and the associated demonyms; major cities such as New York City, London, Moscow and Paris; the continents and the major oceans and seas; commonly known languages, particularly English; large-scale historical events (World War II); familiar astronomical objects (Earth, Moon, Sun); as well as common "dictionary" words."
- This was added: "Avoid piping links from "year" to "year in something" or "something year" (
[[1991 in music|1991]]) in the main prose of an article in most cases. Use an explicit cross-reference, such as''(see [[1991 in music]])'', if it is appropriate to link a year to such an article at all. However, such piped links may be useful:
- in places where compact presentation is important (some tables, infoboxes and lists); and
- in the main prose of articles in which such links are used heavily, as is often the case with sports biographies that link to numerous season articles.
- "Avoid obvious, redundant, and useless links" was added to the nutshell.
- "Or publicly displayed" was added to Criterion 4:
- Previous publication. Non-free content must have been published or publicly displayed outside Wikipedia.
- The disputed clause ", and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding" was again removed from Criterion 8. [Editorial comment: The clause appears to have been removed and reinstated month by month for most months of this year.]
- Significance.' Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic
, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding.
The nutshell text:
- Generally, article naming should indicate what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.
was changed to this:
- Article naming should reflect what English speakers easily recognize.
- Added: "A proper name is usually not italicized when it is used, but it may be italicized when the name itself is being referred to (see Words as words)."
Excellent, important, outstanding, world-famous have been added to the list of words that should ring alarm bells.
This is a new section that lists optional elements that may be included in a lead, in addition to introductory information, and the order in which they should occur.
In Lead section, the order of the elements was clarified, providing a code that is readable by both graphic browser and screen reader. In particular, the positioning of caption text for an image in the lead was clarified.
- New section on the term Controversy.
- The statistical meanings of significantly and associated were clarified.
- A tweaking of the advice on the words theory, extremist, terrorist and freedom fighter.
Features and admins
Administrators
Three users were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process over the last two weeks: Malcolmxl5 (nom), Lankiveil (nom), and Smashville (nom).
In addition, two users were granted bureaucrat status: Dweller (nom) and Bibliomaniac15 (nom).
Bots
Sixteen bots or bot tasks were approved to begin operating over the last two weeks: Addbot (task request), Addbot (task request), Legobot (task request), J Milburn Bot (task request), AnomieBOT (task request), AnomieBOT (task request), AilurophobiaBot (task request), Erwin85Bot (task request), TinucherianBot (task request), Mr.Z-bot (task request), SusBot (task request), AloysiusLiliusBot (task request), SamuraiBot (task request), Janna (task request), AnomieBOT (task request), and Chris G Bot (task request).
Featured pages
Thirty-three articles were promoted to featured status over the last two weeks: Operation Ke (nom), New York State Route 22 (nom), Proserpine (play) (nom), Maryland Route 36 (nom), My Happiness (song) (nom), Nashville Sounds (nom), Edward VIII abdication crisis (nom), Voyage of the James Caird (nom), Texas Tech University (nom), Race Against Time (Lewis) (nom), Hurricane Kyle (2002) (nom), Mangalore (nom), New York State Route 373 (nom), Déjà Vu (Beyoncé Knowles song) (nom), Disintegration (nom), Red-necked Grebe (nom), Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's road race (nom), Jena Six (nom), Meteorological history of Tropical Storm Allison (nom), Utah State Route 128 (nom), Bone Wars (nom), Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (nom), 2002 Bou'in-Zahra earthquake (nom), 2007 USC Trojans football team (nom), Literature in the Hoysala Empire (nom), Phan Xich Long (nom), Stigand (nom), The World Ends with You (nom), 1995 Pacific Grand Prix (nom), Scattered disc (nom), Last of the Summer Wine (nom), Thriller (album) (nom), and Mario Power Tennis (nom).
Eleven lists were promoted to featured status over the last two weeks: List of Good Charlotte awards (nom), List of Sendai International Music Competition winners (nom), List of founding Fellows, Scholars and Commissioners of Jesus College, Oxford (nom), Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance (nom), List of submissions to the 72nd Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film (nom), List of Korn awards (nom), List of Natasha Bedingfield awards (nom), List of Seattle Mariners Opening Day starting pitchers (nom), List of celebrities involved with WrestleMania (nom), List of Indian Mutiny Victoria Cross recipients (nom), and List of number-one Billboard Top Latin Albums of 2000 (nom).
Four topics were promoted to featured status over the last two weeks: Guitar Hero (nom), Gwen Stefani albums (nom), Galilean moons (nom), and 1997 Pacific hurricane season (nom).
The following featured articles were displayed over the last two weeks on the Main Page as Today's featured article: Diary of a Camper, The Penelopiad, Donald Bradman, Kaziranga National Park, Walter de Coventre, Local Government Commission for England, Dartmouth College, Leo Ornstein, Battle of Dyrrhachium (1081), Pendle witch trials, Emmy Noether, Calgary Flames, Alanya, and Domestic sheep.
Former featured pages
Six articles were delisted over the last two weeks: History of Limerick (nom), Ammolite (nom), W. Mark Felt (nom), Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (nom), Sesame Street (nom), and Bank of China (Hong Kong) (nom).
No lists or topics were delisted over the last two weeks.
Featured media
The following featured pictures were displayed over the last two weeks on the Main Page as picture of the day: Civil Rights Act of 1964, Pigment, Monarch butterfly, Study (drawing), Devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, Rigger, Bearded Vulture, Tablet press, Palestinian costume, Mont Blanc, Refraction, Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel, Nectar robbing, and Casa Milà.
A record breaking thirty-five sounds were featured over the last two weeks: The Star-Spangled Banner (nom), Au Clair de la Lune (1860) (nom), Papua New Guinean Mask Dance (nom), Neville Chamberlain announces Britain is at war (nom), Statement by the President in his Address to the Nation, September 11, 2001 (nom), Balkandji - Diavolska shterka (nom), Chegou a hora da fogueira (nom), Alô... Alô? (nom), Oppaneun punggakjaengi (오빠는 풍각쟁이) (nom), Skye Boat Song (nom), Ten Biblical Songs (nom), Maple Leaf Rag (nom).
Set of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata:
1st movement, 2nd movement, 3rd movement (nom)
Set of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons:
Spring - 1st movement, Spring - 2nd movement, Spring - 3nd movement, Summer - 1st movement, Summer - 2nd movement, Summer - 3rd movement, Autumn - 1st movement, Autumn - 2nd movement, Autumn - 3rd movement, Winter - 1st movement, Winter - 2nd movement, and Winter - 3rd movement (nom)
Set of Schubert's Impromptu in B flat (D. 935/3; Op. 142 No. 3):
Theme, Variation I, Variation II, Variation III, Variation IV to Variation VI
Complete version (nom)
Set of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 28 in A major, Op. 101
Movement I, Movement II, and Movements III and IV (nom),
No featured pictures were demoted this week. Twenty-three pictures were promoted to featured status over the last two weeks and are shown below.
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Morning fog in East Frisia -
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Green frog (Rana clamitans) -
United States Declaration of Independence painting by John Trumbell -
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Gadwall (Anas strepera) -
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Joss Bay Beach -
Painted Lady butterfly -
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_Star-Forming_Pillar_of_Gas_and_Dust.jpg)
,_by_John_Trumbull.jpg)
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
- An error in a software update this week meant that making null edits to sections ended up blanking them instead; it was fixed shortly afterwards. (r40107, bug 15340)
- The "invert selection" checkbox in multiple namespace selection (such as on Special:Search) now correctly inverts a selection consisting of (main) and no other namespaces. (r40113, bug 15342)
- The "Go" button on Special:Recentchanges and Special:Watchlist has now been moved to a correctly formatted location, rather than on a line by its own. (r40122, bug 15172)
- Sortable tables now correctly sort currencies written with the yen sign. (r40314, bug 15405)
- The API now always informs a user or bot of the length of time it has to wait when login attempts via the API have been throttled. (r40446, bug 15479)
- Anonymous users again receive the new-messages bar when a user edits their user-talk page. (N.B. This bug was a different one to the infamous bug 9213, despite having similar symptoms, and much easier to fix.) (r40461, bug 15292)
- Editing anonymously via the API no longer causes an internal server error. (r40493, bug 15420)
- When blocking a user via the API, a request to disable autoblocks is now honoured. (r40494, bug 15486)
- Special:Recentchangeslinked no longer has a redundant submit button. (r40458, bug 15482)
- It's now again possible to search for pages with a particular prefix via the API when that prefix ends with a slash. (r40432, bug 15471)
New features
- A new magic word {{NUMBERINGROUP}} counts the number of users in a particular user group (such as the number of bureaucrats or rollbackers); for instance:
{{NUMBERINGROUP:rollbacker}}gives 6,863. (r40116, bug 13471) - EXIF data extracted from images (which is shown below the image as metadata) now contains information about the flash settings used to make the image, if available. (r40164, bug 11884)
- Special:Statistics now calculates the number and percentage of active users on a wiki, as well as the total number of users. (r40279 & r40360, bug 13585)
- It's now possible to patrol pages via the API (r40435, bug 15445) and purge pages via the API (r40459, bug 15466).
- The watchlist entry for a protected page now contains a link to its history. (r40502, bug 14119)
- Special:Protectedtitles can now be filtered by protection level the same way Special:Protectedpages can. (r40503, bug 12961)
- When a user attempts to edit a protected page, the relevant excerpt from the protection log which explains why the page is protected is now shown on the edit page. (r40509, bug 6179)
- Default values for the input boxes on the protection form can now be given via the URL on links to it. (r40518, bug 12750)
- CSS classes have been added to the text areas of semi-protected and of protected pages (thus allowing them to be styled differently, if required). (r40519, bug 11825)
- Edits made by new users are now marked as such in Special:Recentchanges. (r40535, bug 3226)
- It's now possible to request the API to give information about the type of log action when asking for log entries from Recent Changes. (r40529, bug 15492)
- Special:Listusers can be filtered to show only users with at least one edit. (r40556, bug 10815)
Other technology news
- A mistake by developers led to the accidental deletion of the most current version of about 3000 images; all but 496 were recovered almost immediately from duplicate images, caches, and recent backups.[1] (A list of the images that were missing at that point is at m:Missing images 2008-09.) Since then, many other of the images have been recovered, and it is believed that fewer than 50 of them are still missing.
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 two cases over the last fortnight, leaving five currently open.
New cases
- Piotrus 2: A second case involving alleged edit warring and other misconduct by Piotrus and other editors. Piotrus denies the allegations against him, and suggests that the case may be a deliberate attempt to drive him from the site.
- Sarah Palin protection wheel war: A case involving wheel warring on the Sarah Palin article, over a dispute as to the merits of page protection being applied in respect of it.
Evidence phase
- SlimVirgin-Lar: A case brought by Thatcher, asking the committee to review the use of checkuser by Lar, in the light of comments by SlimVirgin (here, inter alia), alleging that he misused the tool. Evidence is to be submitted privately to the committee by e-mail, and voting will presumably occur privately as well.
Voting phase
- C68-FM-SV: A case involving disputes between Cla68, FeloniousMonk, SlimVirgin, JzG, and others. Newyorkbrad has proposed a lengthy decision, most of which has the support of four arbitrators, which sets out a number of principles and findings of fact, and instructs the parties to review and abide by them, giving a number of prohibited courses of conduct by way of example.
- Alastair Haines: A case involving Alastair Haines and other users. Remedies imposing editing restrictions on him, as well as on Ilkali and LisaLiel, have the support of five to six arbitrators.