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23 January 2012

 

2012-01-23

SOPA blackout, Orange partnership

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By Aude, Rd232

SOPA blackout

On 18 January (from 05:00 UTC) the English Wikipedia joined thousands of other web sites in protesting SOPA and PIPA by blacking out its own content for 24 hours.[1] Exceptions from the blackout were made for read-only access to pages about the protest and articles relating to SOPA and PIPA. The purpose of the blackout was twofold: to raise public awareness, and to encourage people to share their views with their elected representatives.

Blackout screen – shown 18 January 2012 05.00 UTC to 19 January 2012 05.00 UTC
Edits per minute drop to nearly zero during the blackout
During the blackout:
  • The Wikipedia page about SOPA and PIPA was accessed more than 162 million times during the 24 hour period.[2]
  • More than 12,000 people commented on the Wikimedia Foundation's blog post announcing the blackout.[3] Most supported the blackout.
  • More than eight million looked up their elected representatives' contact information via the Wikipedia tool.[2] The Senate's web site was unable to accommodate the number of citizens attempting to use its contact forms.[4]
  • Anti-SOPA and PIPA topics began trending globally on Twitter immediately after the blackout began. Hashtags included #factswithoutwikipedia, #SOPAstrike, and #wikipediablackout. At one point, 1% of all tweets carried the #wikipediablackout tag,[5] and the term SOPA was used in a quarter-million tweets hourly during the blackout.[6]
  • A quick search of SOPA blackout on Google News yielded 9,500 links as of 13:30 Pacific standard time, January 19.[7]
Spanish Wikipedia with a banner supporting English Wikipedia's SOPA protest

English Wikipedia's blackout was supported by dozens of other Wikimedia communities, typically with a blackout banner, as recorded at Wikipedia:SOPA initiative/Actions by other communities. Many other websites participated in the protests against SOPA and PIPA on 18 January, but English Wikipedia's blackout featured prominently in media coverage (Wikipedia:SOPA initiative/Media) – see "In the News" in this issue of the Signpost.

After the blackout the Wikimedia Foundation's Brandon Harris posted a blog entry on the blackout implementation process, focussing on the blackout screen and banner design considerations.

Wikipedia available data-charge free on Orange

Mobile service provider Orange has made a three-year commitment, in partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation, to provide access to Wikipedia without data charges to customers in 20 countries in the Middle East and Africa. The service will initially be offered in Tunisia and Cote d'Ivoire, beginning in a few months. The partnership between Orange and the Wikimedia Foundation is service-based and does not involve money.

Wikipedia access is provided via a lightweight "Wikipedia Zero", developed by the Wikimedia Foundation; however, the Orange service is not being branded as "Wikipedia Zero", as that may cause confusion with Facebook Zero. Wikipedia is provided as text-only, reducing bandwidth loads, and if a user clicks on an image, they will incur data charges (with warning).

Brief notes

  • Featured article leadership: A request for comment has been initiated to discuss the structure of the leadership for the featured article forums at the English Wikipedia.
  • Wikimedia UK recruiting Communications Organiser: Wikimedia's UK chapter is recruiting a Communications Organiser. Applications are open until February 10.
  • Wikimania 2012: Registration has opened for Wikimania 2012 in Washington, DC. The registration for Wikimedia contributors (and students) is $35, and travel scholarships are available (deadline February 16).

References

  1. ^ This link shows the blackout page as it appeared during the protest.
  2. ^ a b Wikimedia Foundation (January 19, 2012). "Wikipedia blackout supports free and open internet" (Press release). Note: The figure, which upon further review is actually about 164 million, reflects unique page impressions, not unique people. Detailed analysis to assess duplication would be costly.
  3. ^ http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/01/16/wikipedias-community-calls-for-anti-sopa-blackout-january-18/
  4. ^ "On SOPA blackout day, Senate Web sites experience 'technical difficulties'". January 18, 2012.
  5. ^ "trendistic.indextank.com".
  6. ^ "hotspots.io/SOPA".
  7. ^ See the number of articles listed here: https://www.google.com/search?tbm=nws&q=SOPA+blackout


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2012-01-23

World watched as Wikipedia shut down for SOPA blackout

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By Tom Morris

World watches as Wikipedia shuts down for SOPA blackout

This screenshot of the English Wikipedia landing page, as seen by millions during the blackout on January 18, 2012

Last week's 24 hour Wikipedia blackout protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act and PROTECT IP Act was heavily covered by the world's international media. A full page listing media covering of the blackout is on Meta-Wiki.

Before the protest started, Jimmy Wales gave interviews to CNN, and appeared on BBC Radio 5 Live, and on BBC Two's Newsnight to debate Michael O'Leary, a representative of the Motion Picture Association of America. After the blackout concluded, the Bits blog of The New York Times interviewed Jimmy. Wikinews interviewed Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Sue Gardner.

The blackout led Seth Borenstein at MSNBC to wonder what it would be like if the Internet went down. The article claims that for a day or so, there wouldn't be any major physical harm, but after a few days it would lead to economic crisis and mass unemployment. As a response to the blackout, The Guardian launched a blog feature called "Guardipedia", where bloggers responded to questions using printed copies of the Encyclopedia Britannica and Who's Who as an alternative to Wikipedia. The Signpost noted that the Britannica volumes were out-of-date, and were not much help in answering a question about South African history: "Apparently Nelson Mandela is still in jail? That's what the book says, anyway."

Twitterers gently mocked Wikipedia's absence with a hashtag called "#FactsWithoutWikipedia" where people made up outlandish claims. MSNBC reports on doug_gross' 'fact': "Marc Zuckerberg (real name, Horblatt Snarfleblurp) was an alien scout sent to Earth to ruin human productivity." Russia Today posted more tweets:

  • "Eminem had the same skin-whitening treatment as Michael Jackson, but it worked."
  • "The British version of Wikipedia is called Wikipaedia."
  • "France has lost its AAA rating. This means they are no longer allowed to sell small batteries."

The meme was also taken up by a number of other news sources: Now. Here. This., the blog of Time Out London, pulled some choice London facts like "Sophie Ellis-Bextor once ran for a Lib Dem councillor seat in West London" and "Ed Miliband is a London based Alt-Folk band". IrishCentral.com quoted tweets posted under the derived hashtag #irishFactsWithoutWikipedia including "The IRA was a splinter group of The Richard and Judy Book Club that just got a bit out of hand". SBNation.com quoted a variety of NASCAR-related phony facts.

There was a significant amount of post-blackout coverage, with one focus on US senators who changed their minds over SOPA, as well as how SOPA and PIPA would affect the Internet as we know it.

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2012-01-23

The Golden Horseshoe: WikiProject Toronto

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By Mabeenot
WikiProject news
News in brief
Submit your project's news and announcements for next week's WikiProject Report at the Signpost's WikiProject Desk.
Toronto's Old City Hall
The CN Tower from the base
Ontario Highway 401 is the busiest highway in North America

In the WikiProject Report's four years of existence, the Signpost has never interviewed a Canadian project. This week we end that drought. WikiProject Toronto covers Canada's largest city and the surrounding areas of Ontario. Started in January 2003 using WikiProject London as a template, WikiProject Toronto has grown to include 20 pieces of Featured material and 39 Good Articles. WikiProject Toronto is the parent project for WikiProject Toronto Blue Jays and a child of WikiProject Cities and WikiProject Canadian Communities. The project maintains a to-do list, items for recognizing valuable contributors, and a watchlist. This week we interviewed Eelamstylez77.

What motivated you to join WikiProject Toronto? Are you a Maple Leafs fan? Do you contribute to any other WikiProjects related to Ontario or Canada?

The fact that I live in and admire the city of Toronto motivated me to join WikiProject Toronto. I certainly am a fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs. I have contributed to various articles relating to Ontario and Canada.

In general, projects covering Canadian cities, provinces, and infrastructure do not appear to be as active as those in Britain and the United States. Why have WikiProjects had such difficulty thriving in Canada? Do you feel Canadian Wikipedians focus more on other topics?

I think that is because news outlets and users of social media in general seem to shift most of their interest to news events in the United States, which clearly is a more internationally prominent country; same goes for the United Kingdom. One can probably find more sources and detail online about the latest US presidential election compared to the latest federal election in Canada. As a result, most editors spend time editing and caring for articles and projects related to the United States and Britain. I, however, do not feel that Canadian Wikipedians focus more on other topics compare to topics relating to Canada. I feel there is a growing interest among Canadian editors in Canadian topics. Then again, I do hope to see more international interest in Canadian topics rather than just a Canadian interest.

WikiProject Toronto is home to 12 Featured Articles, 8 Featured Lists, and 39 Good Articles. Have you contributed to any of these articles? What are some challenges facing editors as they try to improve articles about Toronto?

I have contributed to a few of the aforementioned kinds of articles. I have majorly written 2 two articles relating to WikiProject Toronto which I later nominated for good article status and were successful getting there. I feel that editors face small challenges while trying to improve articles. One important challenge that comes to my mind is the fact that some topics, including topics that most Canadians may consider important, lack sources on the Internet. Without reliable sources it can be difficult to improve articles about Toronto.

With Toronto serving as Canada's business and financial hub, does the project deal with many articles about Canadian businesses based in Toronto? Are there any challenges to maintaining and keeping promotional language out of these business articles?

Yes, the project does deal with businesses based in Toronto. There are some challenges in keeping promotional language out of these articles. I think editors who seem to contribute inappropriate edits as such are mostly the newcomers. Removing these edits and sending friendly reminders to these editors seem to be enough in keeping these articles clean.

Toronto is represented in seven major league sports, including the only Major League Baseball and National Basketball Association teams in Canada. How well are Toronto's sports teams covered on Wikipedia?

Toronto's sports teams are covered quite well on Wikipedia, especially teams that are affiliated with the major associations, such as the NHL, NBA, and MLB.

With a variety of educational institutions located in Toronto, including the University of Toronto and the Royal Conservatory of Music, have there been any efforts to recruit college and university students to improve Wikipedia's articles on Toronto? Could the GLAM project do more to attract contributions from Toronto galleries, libraries, archives, and museums?

To my knowledge, there have not been any direct efforts to recruit college and university students to improve articles about Toronto. I do believe the GLAM project could significantly help attract contributions from galleries, libraries, archives, and museums in Toronto.

What are WikiProject Toronto's most urgent needs? How can a new contributor help today?

I think WikiProject Toronto's most urgent needs are to clean up and improve essential articles about Toronto, such as the Toronto Transit Commission or Amalgamation of Toronto. A new contributor can help today by cleaning these articles up and have them follow Wikipedia's guidelines, improve spelling/grammar, enrich with reliable sources, and have them follow a proper format.

Anything else you'd like to add?

I hope to see more international interest in Toronto-related articles. A worldwide contribution to Toronto can give it a better world-class standard.


Next week's interview will be prehistoric. Until then, search for the records of extinct species in the archive.

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2012-01-23

Interview with Muhammad Mahdi Karim and the best of the week

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By Crisco 1492, Mathew Townsend, and Tony1
Masjid al-Haram, the largest mosque in the world and Islam's holiest place, by Muhammad Mahdi Karim, interviewed this week by The Signpost.


This week's "Featured content" covers Sunday 15 – Saturday 21 January

In our ongoing series of interviews with editors who contribute to knowledge on little-represented areas, this week The Signpost interviewed Muhammad Mahdi Karim. Muhammad is an avid participant at Featured picture candidates and has shot featured pictures related to his homeland of Tanzania, his current home in India, and Islam.

On dealing with systemic bias:

I don't do anything particularly out of my way to combat the bias. I guess due to my location and the culture I live in, what I consider everyday life, is what is under-represented at wiki. One thing I noticed is some prominent Islamic figures don't have wiki articles or if they had, these have been deleted due to a lack of written sources to back them up. Pictures of such people are thus not put to use.

On representation of Tanzania:

When it comes to Tanzania, I think we may have more than enough insects to keep us going for a while :)

I feel pictures of animals and architecture/landscapes from the eastern part of Tanzania (Dar es Salaam and surrounding areas) are somewhat covered. We are short on pictures of politicians, culture and perhaps landscapes from the northern, western and southern parts. Unfortunately, I don't see us getting many pictures of politicians due to their inaccessibility to photographers like me. The rest of Tanzania could be covered but one would require to travel the country as volunteers from these areas are unlikely.

Photographing in some areas/events in Tanzania require a mandatory media pass. As such, most governments buildings like the Karimjee Hall or the Bunge building (parliament) are out of my reach. I have been stopped a few times and scolded for shooting things even from public space! It would benefit photographers if Wikipedia/Wikimedia offered a media pass to recognized photographers to avoid such skirmishes.

On photography and Islam:

Photography in some sects of Islam is strongly discouraged. Thus taking pictures in some places such as near the Kaaba is very difficult. When I was there, I snuck in a mobile phone and snapped the picture at the top, which is one of the most widely used images of the Kaaba on the net. Unfortunately, this image was not featured due to the quality of the picture. At the nomination, some users maintained that the image should not be featured as a better one was bound to come. It has been over 3 years now and we still do not have any featured image for Islam's holiest place. This is a challenge I face from non-Muslims who expect the same quality of images to be delivered regardless of the limitations.

Some sects of Islam are particularly against depiction of humans or animals. When I was tasked by a potential buyer to get a picture of a Muslim praying, some Muslims I asked refused to pose for me. I in turn felt awkward about asking others.

My mosque in Dar es Salaam has no problem with me taking pictures but every once in a while I do get a weird look from a person wondering perhaps why I was taking pictures and not worshiping.


An American White Ibis in flight; from the new featured article.
From the new featured article, the increasing availability of information on growing techniques has made it possible for amateurs to grow psilocybin mushrooms to harvest the drug, without access to laboratory equipment.
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, recently portrayed in the hit film The Iron Lady, with fellow conservative US President Ronald Reagan. The picture was taken in February 1981 and is part of the newly promoted Portal Conservatism.
From the new featured topic, the 2008 Philadelphia Phillies, pictured here with U.S. President Barack Obama, defeated the Tampa Bay Rays to win the Major League Baseball's National League's second World Series championship.
Five articles were promoted to featured status:
  • Adiantum viridimontanum (nom), commonly known as Green Mountain maidenhair fern, is a rare fern found only in outcrops of serpentine rock in New England in the United States and in Canada. (Nominated by Choess)
  • Psilocybin (nom), the psychedelic compound associated with "magic mushrooms", was introduced to popular Western culture by the work of people such as Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann and American counterculture icon Timothy Leary. Psilocybin has mind-altering effects similar to that of LSD and mescaline. Possession of psilocybin-containing mushrooms has been outlawed in most countries, and psilocybin has been classified as a scheduled drug by many national drug laws. (Sasata)
  • New York State Route 319 (nom) is a state highway in Chenango County, New York, United States. Just 5.47 miles (8.80 km) long, it was originally built during the early 19th century as the Norwich and Preston Turnpike, one of many privately maintained turnpikes in the state of New York. In the early 20th century, the state assumed ownership of the turnpike's routing. (Mitchazenia)
  • American White Ibis (nom), a species of bird found from the mid-Atlantic and Gulf Coast of the US south and through most of the New World tropics. Pairs are predominantly monogamous and both parents care for the young, although males tend to engage in extra-pair copulation with other females to increase their reproductive success. (Casliber)
  • The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. (nom) is an American Western/science-fiction television series created by Jeffrey Boam and Carlton Cuse. It ran for 27 episodes on the Fox network starting in the 1993–94 season and garnered a small but dedicated following. Critics praised its humor and unique blend of genres. (Astrocog)

Two featured articles were delisted:


One list was promoted:


One featured portal was promoted:

  • Conservatism (nom). Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society.

One featured topic was promoted:

  • Philadelphia Phillies all-time roster (nom), containing 25 featured lists. The Philadelphia Phillies are a Major League Baseball team based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. They are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's National League. Since the franchise's inception, 1,892 players have made an appearance in a competitive game for the team, whether as an offensive player (batting and baserunning) or a defensive player (fielding, pitching, or both). (nominator Killervogel5).


Five images were promoted. Please click on "nom" to view medium-sized images:

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by artist Caspar David Friedrich




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2012-01-23

Four open cases, proposed decision in Muhammad images, AUSC call for applications

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By Lord Roem

The Arbitration Committee opened no new cases this week, and closed no cases, leaving four open.

AUSC call for applications

On 19 January, the Arbitration Committee announced that it will begin accepting applications for membership on the Audit Subcommittee ("AUSC"). AUSC was established by the committee to investigate complaints concerning the use of CheckUser and Oversight privileges on the English Wikipedia, and to provide better monitoring and supervision of the CheckUser and Oversight positions along with the use of the applicable tools.

There are three vacancies in non-ArbCom positions on the subcommittee, due to the election of past members to the full committee itself. Applicants for the positions will be reviewed by arbitrators in internal discussions before the community is invited to submit questions to candidates. On 29 February, the committee will announce the appointments.

More information on application requirements and submissions can be found on the AUSC appointment page. Applications must be in by 31 January.

Open cases

Muhammad images (Week 5)

This case was opened to address user conduct over a dispute on what depictions of Muhammad, if any, are appropriate to display. New arbitrator AGK published a proposed decision in this case on 20 January, which was his first drafted decision. While a great deal of proposals involve sanctions on disruptive editors, the largest debate among arbitrators have been over proposed principles to guide the handling of future disputes in this area. As of publication, Newyorkbrad's proposed principle on editorial decisions has attracted the greatest support in this area, with a total of eight arbitrators signing on. The principle in part explains that "reminding fellow editors that 'Wikipedia is not censored' will often be the beginning, not the end, of a well-informed analysis regarding inclusion or exclusion of content."

A final decision may be published within a week.

Betacommand 3 (Week 12)

The Betacommand 3 case remained at the proposed decision phase this week. Originally the case was opened to address the multitude of sanctions in effect on this editor. None of the proposed remedies, ranging from site bans to editing restrictions, has garnered adequate support to pass. A motion to close was withdrawn yesterday as the committee continues to work towards consensus. The newest proposal again divided the Committee, so far, in a 5 to 4 vote.

Civility enforcement (Week 4)

This case, which is one of the most active at present, was initially opened due to the actions of several administrators in relation to a user who was blocked over perceived incivility. The evidence and workshop pages were closed after submission deadlines passed. A proposed decision is due to be posted by the end of the week.

TimidGuy ban appeal (Week 6)

This open case was brought to the Committee by an editor to appeal a site ban that was imposed by Jimmy Wales. The expected proposed decision, as mentioned in previous Signpost coverage, is yet to be posted. The tentative date for release had been 16 January. Nevertheless, discussion has continued on the workshop and workshop talk pages.

Other requests and committee action

2012-01-23

Looking ahead to MediaWiki 1.19 and related issues

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By Jarry1250

MediaWiki 1.19 preview

MediaWiki 1.19 will implement improved timezone recognition

Developers working on MediaWiki 1.19, the latest version of the software on which Wikimedia wikis run, are now welcoming beta testers (as announced, for example, on Wikimedia Commons' village pump). According to the release's page on MediaWiki.org, it will feature improvements to the distribution of CSS styling, block log searching, timezone recognition and diff readability (as previously reported); and increased support for different relational database management systems and different languages and scripts. Over a hundred bugs are also expected to be fixed in the release (a reasonably comprehensive list of these is available).

The lengthened testing period (and more generally, the broadness with which testing is being carried out) is designed to head off the kind of implementation problems that have marked previous deployments. Work on reviewing the 1.19 code prior to deployment slowed this week, under the burden of SOPA blackout preparations. As a result, the January 31 deadline for code review will almost certainly be missed; at time of writing, 177 revisions are still in need of review compared to the target of just 44 (full chart).

The importance of 1.19 could well extend beyond its actual deployment; it is currently slated as the final SVN release before a faster, Git-based release cycle kicks in (details). As such, how well the existing process functions is likely to significantly influence the many choices that will be made during the migration to Git.

JavaScript problems ahead?

Another problematic issue of interest to wikitech-l regulars this week was referenced in a short exchange between staff developer Timo Tijhof (better known by his alias Krinkle) and bugmeister and general development process overseer Mark Hershberger. The issue centres on the tricky matter of the correct balance between backwards compatibility and modernisation in the realm of JavaScript loading.

Since the introduction of ResourceLoader in MediaWiki 1.17, core scripts and (some) gadgets are loaded as 'modules'. One of these modules is 'mw.util', on which many user scripts now rely for proper operation. The problem has arisen because, in the past, little effort was made to economise the loading of these modules, and they were assumed to be present when another script needed them (including Common.js). For the past 18 months, however, much more time has been devoted to streamlining the loading process, allowing for faster loading times and a reduced physical footprint for each page: a boon for those on slow Internet connections.

However, this improvement makes it necessary for scripts and script writers to declare which modules their script relies on (known as 'dependencies'). Officially, this has been mandatory since the introduction of ResourceLoader, but until now, these modules were already loaded by other core scripts, allowing scripts to run without errors.

Many scripts have been, or will need to be, updated to conform to the ResourceLoader specification, however. That is ultimately where the problem of backwards compatibility comes in: how to transition to the new standard while not breaking functionality of existing scripts, particularly on smaller wikis that could have lain untouched for years. "If we upgrade MediaWiki and we know that people are going to complain because a widespread dependency (like mw.util) disappeared, let's [avoid making that happen]" wrote Hershberger, "[Nobody wants a] horribly shocking experience after we upgrade the cluster". The best way to achieve that without largely nullifying the performance gains from modernisation is still being discussed (see this bug report).

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.

  • Brief period of slowness traced to Varnish: For about 15 minutes on 20 January, American viewers experienced unstyled pages, drastically increased page loading times, or both. The problem was soon traced to the Ashburn servers responsible for serving bits.wikimedia.org requests (a heading that incorporates styling information, various global scripts, and similar kinds of content). It seems that work being performed to an unrelated intermittent fault, combined with a bug in the Varnish accelerator in use on the servers, resulted in the latter rapidly spiraling out of control. Traffic was temporarily redirected to the servers located in Tampa, an action that could become automated in future.
  • librsvg upgraded: The version of the librsvg used on Wikimedia wikis was upgraded on 23 January to capture improvements made to its implementation of CSS styling. Wikimedia's relationship with the SVG-to-PNG conversion software (generally regarded as the only such software efficient enough to be viable for Wikimedia wikis) has traditionally been love-hate, with users often having to work around its quirks (tracked as bug #31122).
  • "Tabletisation" of Wikimedia apps: As discussed by Lead Software Architect Brion Vibber on his personal blog, efforts have started to reformulate the code behind the Wikimedia iOS and Android apps to allow them to work properly on tablets such as iPads and Kindle Fires. Both transitions are still in their early stages.
  • MediaWiki extension pages to be reviewed: According to a post on the wikitech-l mailing list, a group of developers will attempt to update the main documentation pages of all two thousand MediaWiki extensions registered on MediaWiki.org. The work will assist "future drives reviewing actual code of extensions". Improved documentation is also likely to help external wiki operators considering upgrading their MediaWiki installations.
  • Interwiki bots to merge: Following statistics demonstrating the high percentage of Toolserver resources being taken up by interwiki bots, the toolserver-l mailing list was dominated by discussions over a possible merger to concentrate efforts and make them more efficient. Non-Toolserver bots would be unaffected, but additional Toolserver bots may be prevented.

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