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30 May 2011

 

2011-05-30

ArbCom referendum goes live; US National Archives residency; financial planning; brief news



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2011-05-30

Collaboration with academia; world heritage; xkcd; eG8 summit; ISP subpoena; brief news



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2011-05-30

The Royal Railway

WikiProject news
News in brief
  • The June Wikification Drive begins Wednesday. Do you have what it takes to climb the leader board?
  • After clearing out nearly all of the backlogged articles from 2008, the May Copyedit Drive ran out of steam. Please help them end the drive with a strong push in the final day!
Submit your project's news and announcements for next week's WikiProject Report at the Signpost's WikiProject Desk.
Stephenson's Rocket, an early steam locomotive built in 1829 for the Rainhill Trials on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway
A photochrom of the Tan-y-Bwlch Railway Station sometime between 1890 and 1905
The Westminster Tube Station on the Jubilee Line Extension of the London Underground features platform screen doors intended to reduce noise, decrease wind caused by the piston effect, improve tunnel security, and prevent accidental falls and suicide attempts
The Duke of Gloucester (pictured) was the only BR Standard Class 8 engine ever constructed and was built to replace the Princess Anne which had been damaged beyond repair in the Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash
A Third Class carriage built in 1898 and used on the Chesham branch of the Metropolitan Railway
Mixed gauge baulk road crossover at the Didcot Railway Centre
Paddington Bear, named after the London Paddington station, is represented at the station by this statue

This week, we took a ride on the trains of WikiProject UK Railways. The project, begun in April 2006, currently conducts expansion and maintenance on over 11,000 pages. There are 26 featured articles, 5 featured lists, and 52 good articles included in the project's scope. The project maintains a portal, a list of open tasks, and plenty of resources available to all Wikipedians. WikiProject UK Railways is a child of WikiProject Trains (see our interview from September 2010), sister of WikiProject UK Trams, nephew of WikiProject London Transport, and cousin of WikiProject UK Waterways (interviewed in January 2011). We spent some time with project members mattbuck, Thryduulf, Optimist on the run (formerly Tivedshambo), Alzarian16, Iridescent, Simply south, and Mjroots.

What motivated you to join WikiProject UK Railways? Do you commute via rail? Would you consider yourself a trainspotter?

mattbuck: I think I originally joined due to my interest in the Ffestiniog Railway. I'd never commuted by rail, but there is an almost-universal fascination amongst British people for steam trains, and as a boy I'd always enjoyed going to various railways while on holiday. I did subsequently become a trainspotter, in the autumn of 2008. I'd just got back from my first visit to the job centre, and was feeling that I'd signed my life away to be a shelf stacker, so I decided to go out somewhere. I'd been working on Commons sorting photos of my home city of Bristol, and realised that some Bristol stations were severely lacking photos. I started with the stations, and trainspotting sort of came naturally from that.
Thryduulf: I've always been interested in transport, and particularly railways so joining this project when it started seemed a natural thing for me to do. Apart from a few days here and there, I've never commuted by rail, although I would have done for several years if the stations within walking distance of my home (Cheddar Valley Line) and my office (Henbury Loop Line) had not both been closed in the 1960s. I don't consider myself a "trainspotter" but I do think of myself as a "railfan", as I'm interested in the stations, history, etc rather than seeing individual trains.
Optimist on the run: I don't like the term "trainspotter" as it has negative connotations, at least here in the UK, and portrays an image of an anorak-clad individual standing at the end of a platform. I hope my interests in railways are more rounded than that. I've always been interested in railways and have a good knowledge (and access to some more obscure reference material), which is why I joined the project. I commute by rail most days, though recently I've been cycling sometimes instead.
Alzarian16: I found the project via the talk page of an article I was working on at the time (British Rail Class 180 I think) and thought it looked like a good way to find topics of interest to work on and ask for help when I needed it. I don't commute at present, but if I did I would try to use rail if at all possible. "Trainspotter" is a very narrowly defined term for a small part of what's really a much wider interest, but I don't object to its use, although "enthusiast" is better.
Iridescent: I'm interested in 19th century civil engineering, rather than in trains per se. Railways were the defining technology of the period, so there's a lot of train-related material there. I wouldn't consider myself either a trainspotter or a railfan; my interest is in the infrastructure, rather than in individual locomotives.
Simply south: I have always been interested in rail transport since a very young age. I have found Wikipedia to be a good outlet for this and for collaborating with other people interested in the different aspects of the rail industry and everything else about it. I am not really a trainspotter. I describe myself as a rail enthusiast and am more interested in the routes and stations, as well as the journey.

Do you find yourself working more on articles relating to currently operating railways or historic/defunct railways?

Mjroots: Mostly historic railways, with some heritage railways thrown in. I am also interested in railway accidents.
mattbuck: I don't tend to do much work on actual articles, I'm more involved in the photos on Wikimedia Commons. However, I would say more current operating articles, as they're generally easier to photograph; though I have produced several route diagrams for defunct lines. That said, I've recently been working on Severn Beach Line-related articles, which hold a certain emotional connection to me, as my grandmother lived right next to the station at Redland.
Thryduulf: I'm more of a wikignome and facilitator rather than a major contributor of prose. I tend to work on a wide variety of railway articles, although the Westcountry and London are particular focuses, as is wherever I've recently travelled. The Bridgnorth Cliff Railway and LNER Class A4 4488 Union of South Africa articles were two of the first articles I ever created as a Wikipedian (I'd recently taken very good photos of these).
Alzarian16: A bit of both - basically anything that I come across which would benefit from improvement, with a slight focus on areas with which I have a personal connection. My two rail-based article creations were a former station and a proposed line.
Iridescent: On railways which were operational in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Some are still operational, some are long defunct.
Simply south: I seem to focus mainly on maintenance around the project. Overall article wise, I tend to focus more on modern railways etc.

The project's talk page is very active. What brings so many editors together for discussion? Is there anything unique about the project or the topic that might contribute to the high levels of activity?

mattbuck: It's mostly because people there are usually very helpful. Several times I've come across a photo I want to categorise which is of a train, which I can sort, but might have no information about where it was taken - asking on the project talk I've seen people be able to identify a station just from the placement of some rubbish bins. The British railway system is huge, even larger if you include historical lines, and it's pretty much impossible for one person to know everything. That said, because of the nature of the system, we don't always agree on things, particularly names. There was a very large discussion last month about whether St Pancras railway station should be moved to St Pancras International railway station or not, as that's the current name but maybe not the common name. Furthermore, we are still divided over train naming - we currently use a system of British Rail Class X, even for trains which were manufactured after British Rail ceased to exist, and that's caused a few arguments.
Simply south: Newcastle, Birmingham New Street, Glasgow Central have all been among the bigger disputes and some are still ongoing. However generally there are a huge amount of people interested in a variety of aspects of rail transport in the UK. We have had a huge history of transportation.

The project has 26 featured articles, 5 featured lists, and 52 good articles. Have you contributed to any of these? Do you have any advice for improving articles about railways in the UK for FA or GA promotion?

Mjroots: I was involved in getting the Hawkhurst Branch Line article to GA status, mostly in collaboration with User:Redrose64.
Thryduulf: I was indirectly responsible for List of London Underground stations getting featured list status after I effected a major reformatting from a messy bulleted list to a table. This was a while before even the FL nom, so I can't take a significant amount of the credit. My copyediting and similar tasks on other articles may have helped in a small way to other recognitions, but I don't keep track.
Optimist on the run: My only FA so far has been Talyllyn Railway, though I assisted with List of railway stations in the West Midlands. I've currently got List of Talyllyn Railway rolling stock in my sights to bring up to FL standard. The best advice I can give is to arm yourself with plenty of reference material, read through it thoroughly and then write the best you can.
Iridescent: Brill railway station, Brill Tramway, Hellingly Hospital Railway, Opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, Quainton Road railway station, Tunnel Railway, Waddesdon Road railway station, Westcott railway station, Wood Siding railway station and Wotton (Metropolitan Railway) railway station at FA (plus assorted tangentially related but not primarily railway articles like Aylesbury duck and Noel Park); Chesham branch, Infrastructure of the Brill Tramway and Railway stations in Cromer at GA. People working on railway articles (at least in the UK and North America) have the luxury of working in a field where almost every aspect of the industry has been the subject of a book at some point; the best advice I could give would be to learn where to locate these books, and also to learn to disregard websites, which are often very professional-looking but frequently wrong.

Railway articles often include detailed route maps and color-coded lists of rail lines. What sources of information are used to create these visual aids? How much effort goes into keep these updated?

mattbuck: I've created quite a few route maps, and I use a variety of sources. The most useful one is Google Earth - you can see most details from the aerial photos, and often you can still see the paths of old railways on the landscape. For older lines, and also for finding disused stations, I use New Popular Edition Maps which maps Britain using old Ordnance Survey maps from before the Beeching Axe. I also have several reference books for various areas, which can help. It's not very hard to keep the route maps up to date - the line ones don't tend to change much, as you usually don't put in that much detail beyond the stations. The succession boxes can be trickier, as service patterns do change, and you occasionally get the odd place like Filton Abbey Wood where to keep the next/previous consistent for a particular service you need to go against the standard next/previous for that line.
Optimist on the run: There are a number of good rail atlases available for the UK, covering both current and historic railways, and comparing these gives a good indication about changes of station names, etc.
Simply south: WP:RDT is a good place to discuss the technical sides of these. At the project, we also have a list of company and system colours, WP:WikiProject UK Railways/Colours list.

Does the project collaborate with any other projects?

Thryduulf: There is an obvious crossover with the parent WP:Trains and with the various geographic projects and task forces, but I'm not sure if there is formal collaboration.
Simply south: The project does collaborations with geographical projects as well as other transportation projects, such as WP:WikiProject London Transport. The Route diagram template project is a resource on the routes of the network and discussing some technical sides.

What are the project's most pressing needs? How can a new member help today?

mattbuck: We have a list of some 50 current stations in the UK that we have no photos of, which is quite surprising, though many of those are quite rural and have very low usage.
Thryduulf: Many of the articles about smaller and historic stations are very stubby and it would be great if we could expand some of these.
Alzarian16: The articles in Category:British Rail diesel multiple units and its contemporaries, many of which are fairly high-traffic, are often lacking in sources and early operational history. Improvements to these would be very helpful.


Next week's article will be printed, bound, and sold. Until then, see our previously published work in the archive.

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2011-05-30

Whipping fantasies, American–British naval rivalry, and a medieval mix of purity and eroticism



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2011-05-30

Update  – injunction from last week has expired

The Arbitration Committee opened no new cases. Two cases are currently open.

Open cases

Racepacket (Week 5)

During the week, further proposals were submitted in the proposed decision for arbitrators to vote on.

Tree shaping (Week 5)

During the week, drafter Elen of the Roads submitted additional proposals in the workshop which received comments from arbitrators and parties to the case.

Injunction

Update

The Committee has clarified that the injunction included in last week's Signpost coverage may now be regarded as expired. This is because an arbitration case will not be opened, and pending changes are not enabled on any main namespace pages [3].

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2011-05-30

Wikimedia down for an hour; What is: Wikipedia Offline?

Wikimedia wikis down for an hour

As noted in last week's "Technology Report", Wikimedia wikis underwent a scheduled downtime of one hour on Tuesday 24 May at around 13:00–14:00 UTC. The downtime meant that the Foundation has already missed previous aired targets of limiting downtime to just 5.256 minutes per annum (equivalent to 99.999% uptime) and 52.6 minutes (99.99% uptime) for this calendar year. However, the work does appear to have been successful at reducing the quantity of out-of-date pages served to readers and other similar problems.

During the downtime, designed to allow the operations team sufficient time to "update the router software and tune the configuration", access to Wikimedia sites was intermittent. The episode and associated issues was alluded to by cartoonist Randall Monroe on his comic strip xkcd (see also this week's "In the news" for more details). Wikimedia developers enjoyed dissecting the technical aspects of the cartoon on the wikitech-l mailing list.

What is: Wikipedia Offline?

Many Wikipedia editors can now access the Internet from multiple locations: at home, at work, even on-the-go with smartphones. In 2010, however, only 30% of the world had any access at all to the so-called "World Wide Web", even when the high rates of availability found in the developed world are allowed to skew the data (source: CIA World Factbook). Since the Wikimedia Foundation's aim is to "encourage the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content", it is clear that either the remaining 70% will have to be supplied with the Internet so they can access the online versions of Wikimedia wikis, or the Wikimedia wikis will have to be provided in an offline-friendly format (in contrast, 50% of the world has used a computer, according to Pew Research). The "Wikipedia Offline" project, then, is a WMF initiative aimed at spreading its flagship product freely to the two billion people who use a computer but cannot access the Internet.

There are two parts to the challenge: firstly, in ensuring that there are Wikipedias in as many languages as possible. The number of users for whom a Wikipedia exists in a language they speak was recently estimated as above 98% (foundation-l mailing list); about 82% have a Wikipedia in their native tongue (also foundation-l). The second challenge is the technical one of supplying the information. A current strategy of the Foundation is to continue to make the raw data of Wikipedias available via so-called "dumps", while simultaneously supporting open-source programs that can process these files. In combination, this will allow whole Wikipedias to be either downloaded when an Internet connection is available, or to be shipped on DVDs or other portable media. This runs alongside the Foundation's existing project to select the most useful articles from a given Wikipedia, hence condensing an encyclopedia onto a single CD.

While "dumps" are largely tried and tested (though recent work has focussed on improving their regularity and reliability), there have also been efforts to enable the export of smaller "collections" of articles, for example those relating to major health issues faced by developing countries. This was in part provided by a new export format (ZIM, developed by the openZim project) that can be read by some offline readers. However, ongoing efforts focus mainly on the second half of the strategy: the provision of a good-quality reader capable of displaying off-line versions of wikis. A number of possible readers were tested. The "Kiwix" reader was selected in late 2010, and the Foundation has since devoted time to improving its user interface, including via the translation of its interface. There is also competition from other readers, including "Okawix", the product of the French company Linterweb. User:Ziko blogged last week about the differences he found between the two. Which, if either, will become the standard is unclear, because it is such a fast-moving area.

See also: Wikimedia strategy document, update on Wikimedia's progress (as of March 2011).

In brief

Not all fixes may have gone live to WMF sites at the time of writing; some may not be scheduled to go live for many weeks.

  • On 26 May user MZMcBride reported at the administrators' noticeboard that some deletion debates and arbitration pages were being indexed on Google (that is to say, appeared in Google's search listings, despite this being prohibited by the English Wikipedia's "robots.txt"). The problem was traced to a complexity in Google's spidering system, which does not equate ordinary characters (such as ":" and "/") with their encoded forms ("%3A" and "%2F"). As a result, effective blocking requires a number of additional variants to be listed. Within 50 minutes the Foundation's operations engineer Ryan Lane was working on the case, and NOINDEX code was added to relevant templates. NukeBot (run by admin NuclearWarfare) also began to add the directive to each page in turn to enforce non-spidering. Afterwards, bug #29162 was opened to propose automatically handling such cases in future.
  • David Gerard launched a vocal attack on the GFDL software licence recommended to developers by the Free Software Foundation. Instead, he advised that "[developers should] use CC by-sa, CC-by or Public Domain ... If it's a software manual, [they should] license or dual-license it under the same licence as the software itself".
  • Wikimedia developers honoured a request from the Foundation's legal department (one of what are termed "office actions") to delete certain image files permanently from Wikimedia servers (server admin log).
  • The codebase on the anti-vandalism tool Twinkle was updated, prompting a number of bug reports and some non-functionality during the transitionary period. It is now "gadget only", according to its developer User:AzaToth (English Wikipedia's Technical Village Pump). Many other Wikimedia wikis have their own copy of the tool; many of them will have to be updated manually.
  • Bug #27465, which prevented the SVG parser from rendering unusual but perfectly valid images, was fixed.
  • Magnus Manske, one of the original developers of the MediaWiki software, began a new blog. His first blogpost concerned one of the gadgets he has written for Wikimedia sites, "Commons Commander".
  • The Article Feedback extension for rating articles was listed on the Foundation's "Software deployments" page to be expanded to all articles on the English Wikipedia on 31 May. The lack of publicity given to the deployment raised criticism from some quarters, particularly in the light of recent controversies about the Pending Changes feature (example 1, example 2). Erik Möller explained that the page was in error, and instead announced that the tool would be rolled out incrementally over the next few weeks. In related news, a fix preventing the tool from appearing on redirect pages was pushed live to Wikimedia sites (bug #29164).

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