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4 November 2016

 

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-11-04/From the editors


2016-11-04

Un-presidential politics

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By Milowent and Serendipodous

Your Traffic Reports for the weeks of October 9-15, 15-22, and 23-29, 2016.

October 9–15, 2016

The U.S. presidential election dominated the charts for another week, keyed off of the rather distasteful second presidential debate held on October 9. Is it over yet? NO! Not until November 8.

For the full top-25 lists (and archives back to January 2013), see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions. For a list of the most-edited articles every week, see WP:MOSTEDITED.

For the week of October 9–15, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

Rank Article Class Views Image Notes
1 Donald Trump C-Class 1,951,789
The second U.S. presidential debate occurred on October 9 and it was a rather nasty one by American standards.
2 Billy Bush Start-Class 1,451,164
It's been an interesting time for the cousin of Jeb and Dubya. First he was blasted for failing to catch Ryan Lochte out on his preschool lying, and then the tape of his 2005 talk with Donald Trump came out.
3 Hillary Clinton Featured Article 1,009,711
That Billy Bush got more views than Clinton tells you the 2005 Trump videotape was a huge story of interest.
4 Bhumibol Adulyadej C-class 921,863
The King of Thailand died on October 13, after 70 years on the throne. Think about that for a minute. During his reign, David Bowie was born, lived his whole life, and died of old age. His subjects revered him (he is already being called "the Great") but his son, the crown prince Vajiralongkorn (see #12), is generally seen in unflattering terms, though thanks to Thailand's merciless Lèse-majesté laws, which ban public criticism of the Royal Family, such opinions are not expressed openly. Thailand has been in a state of semi-permanent political crisis for more than a decade, and is currently under the control of a military junta. Much now depends on how the Thai people react to the succession, though given the myriad pressures involved, no one can guess what the outcome will be.
5 Bob Dylan Featured Article 915,438
The famed singer-songwriter won the Nobel Prize for Literature. A rather unusual pick, the first musician in the history of the award, and thus is getting a fair amount of attention.
6 Westworld (TV series) C-Class 910,820
To be clear: this is not based on a novel by Michael Crichton: Crichton was a filmmaker as well as a novelist, and Westworld was a film he both wrote and directed back in the 1970s. But whereas that was a straightforward "monsters on the loose" movie, about a Western-themed amusement park staffed by hyperrealistic robots who go insane and start murdering the guests (sound familiar?), this series looks like it will be taking a more thoughtful, hard scifi approach, with the robots' gradual evolution from programming to quasi-consciousness forming the main plot thread. With a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and ratings of just under 2 million (roughly what Game of Thrones received when it began), it's off to a solid start, though whether it will be the show to carry HBO past Game of Thrones's end remains to be seen.
7 MS The World C-Class 681,608
Courtesy of Reddit: [1]
8 Seat belt C-Class 648,726
As learned in a Reddit thread this week, Volvo invented the seat belt, but gave the patent away because they believed lives were more important than profit. And yet, we still buy other cars.
9 Bill Clinton Featured Article 638,332
Bill Clinton's and Donald Trump's relationships with women have been the stuff of gossip columns for some time. Not going to say anything more to feed the internet troll machines.
10 Luke Cage C-class 629,293
Down from #1 last week. Marvel's Blaxploitation-themed superhero (a.k.a. Power Man) has been a cult favourite for decades (Nicolas Cage named himself after him), but has never seen mainstream success, until now; as played by Mike Colter, pictured, he stars as the hero of his own eponymous series on Netflix.

Week of October 16–22, 2016

As the U.S presidential election approaches, Donald Trump is again number one in our Halloween edition rankings. His refusal at the last debate to say whether he will accept the election result if he loses raised much concern in the press. In other news, Reddit cracked the 5-topic barrier again. I wonder if this is the new normal or just an artifact from the end of summer?

For the week of October 16–22, 2016, the ten most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

Rank Article Class Views Image Notes
1 Donald Trump C-Class 2,140,830
The second U.S. presidential debate was nasty; the final one was scary. Trump's statement that he would "keep us in suspense" regarding whether or not he would accept the election result (an election he has already repeatedly described as "rigged") may have engendered more suspense than he intended (or not. Who knows?).
2 Witch window C-Class 831,274
I'd need to check but this could be the highest-charting Reddit thread since we started the project. These diagonal windows, found almost exclusively in 19th-century farmhouses in Vermont, were intended to ward off witches, since they couldn't fly their broomsticks through them. OK, so what about all the other windows? The thread's popularity is likely due to the approach of Halloween, a holiday that usually has little impact on this list.
3 2004 Harvard–Yale prank Start-Class 739,821
Another Reddit thread, this one concerning a practical joke at the annual Harvard–Yale football game in which Yale supporters handed out cards for the Harvard supporters to flash, and when used together spelled out "WE SUCK". You gotta hand it to whoever came up with that, and even more for pulling it off.
4 Westworld (TV series) C-Class 729,784
To be clear: this is not based on a novel by Michael Crichton: Crichton was a filmmaker as well as a novelist, and Westworld was a film he both wrote and directed back in the 1970s. But whereas that was a straightforward "monsters on the loose" movie, about a Western-themed amusement park staffed by hyperrealistic robots who go insane and start murdering the guests (sound familiar?), this series looks like it will be taking a more thoughtful, hard scifi approach, with the robots' gradual evolution from programming to quasi-consciousness forming the main plot thread. With a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and ratings of just under 2 million (roughly what Game of Thrones received when it began), it's off to a solid start, though whether it will be the show to carry HBO past Game of Thrones's end remains to be seen.
5 Logan (film) Start-Class 669,776
The next film in the X-Men film series will feature the final outings of both Patrick Stewart as Professor X and Hugh Jackman as Logan, a.k.a Wolverine. The surprisingly touching trailer launched this week, and generated a great deal of positive buzz.
6 Hillary Clinton Featured Article 650,343
Clinton continues to be less interesting to our readers than "what will he do next?" Trump, despite public opinion appearing to agree that she won all three debates.
7 Michel'le C-Class 646,377
The R&B singer and former girlfriend of both Dr Dre and Suge Knight, both of whom she claims beat her repeatedly, was the subject of a hit docudrama on Lifetime this week, Surviving Compton: Dre, Suge & Michel'le.
8 Melania Trump C-Class 631,945
Spouse of #1.
9 Deaths in 2016 List 606,553
The views for the annual list of deaths are remarkably consistent on a day to day basis. It is consistently higher in the first half of 2016 with a string of highly notable deaths, but things seem to be calming down a bit. Where the article appears in this chart is entirely dependent on how many subjects in a week happened to exceed this bellwether in views.
10 Dr. Dre Good Article 486,086
The billionaire music producer and ex-boyfriend of Michel'le (see above) filed a cease and desist order against the premiere of the docudrama Surviving Compton, claiming that he never beat her, as the program alleges. He also threatened to sue Michel'le for defamation of character.

Week of October 23-29, 2016

In a week where no article could break one million views, a Google Doodle celebrating Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, who discovered bacteria, tops the chart. Replacing the dominance of U.S. politics with an article about the human search for knowledge is heartening. Beyond that, Wikipedia readers filled their brains with The Walking Dead television show, filling up three slots in the Top 10, and six in the Top 25.

For the week of October 23 to 29, 2016, the ten most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

Rank Article Class Views Image Notes
1 Antonie van Leeuwenhoek B-Class 970,522
For the first time this year, the top article of the week received under one million views. (The last time was when Donald Trump led with 914K views for December 6-12, 2015.) Yet, the top honors still go to the Dutch scientist, whose birthday was celebrated by a Google Doodle on October 24 which celebrated his discovery of "little animals", or animalcules, now known as bacteria.
2 The Walking Dead (TV series) Good Article 967,104
Season 7 (#8) of the popular television show, a mainstay of this chart when it is airing, debuted on October 23.
3 Donald Trump C-Class 898,740
No matter what you do, Donald Trump is always near the top of your Internet. Pageviews show his views were steady this week, in the general range of 110-150K per day, except for Saturday Oct 29 when it received only 81,915 views.
4 Pete Burns C-Class 771,654
The leader of the band Dead or Alive, best known for the 1985 hit You Spin Me Round (Like a Record), died on October 23 at age 57 of cardiac arrest. You Spin Me Round was a fairly eccentric song to became a hit in the United States. In later years, Burns received attention in British media when he appeared on Celebrity Big Brother 4 in 2006.
5 Chicago Cubs C-Class 764,703
The American baseball team has not won a World Series since 1908, but made it to the 2016 World Series, playing against the Cleveland Indians.
6 Negan Start-Class 742,226
The Walking Dead character first appeared in the last season's finale.
7 Halloween B-class 728,419
Views were up in anticipation of the October 31 holiday.
8 The Walking Dead (season 7) Good Article 719,418
See #2.
9 List of Black Mirror episodes C-class 711,183
Series 3 of the British show Black Mirror (#14) created by Charlie Brooker (pictured) debuted on October 21.
10 Doctor Strange (film) C-class 684,854
The Marvel superhero film based on the character of Doctor Strange had its Hollywood premiere on October 20, and in the UK and some other markets on October 25. It will debut in the United States on November 4. Benedict Cumberbatch stars in the title role.




2016-11-04

Washington Post leads the pack in this edition's roundup of media stories

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By Pete Forsyth and Milowent

Wikipedia week at the Washington Post

The Washington Post, the most widely circulated newspaper in the U.S. capital, published several insightful pieces about Wikipedia in the space of a few days.

Robert Gebelhoff's "Science shows Wikipedia is the best part of the Internet" glows about a "first-of-its-kind" study from Harvard Business School, which found that Wikipedia "reduces ideological segregation and is remarkably good at finding neutrality, even on the most contentious topics".

Gebelhoff acknowledged that Wikipedia does suffer at times from the "mean-spiritedness seen in the darker corners of the Internet" (like Facebook and Twitter), but focused on the benefits that can accrue when ideologically opposed Wikipedia editors talk through their differences as they construct articles. He observed that while Wikipedia does not strive to be an "experiment in democracy", it has an "essentially democratic" characteristic. (Oct. 19)

Chris Alcantara of the Washington Post described Wikipedia editors' efforts to select the best images to depict U.S. presidential nominees.

Jeff Guo covered the same study for the Post's Wonkblog: "Wikipedia is fixing one of the Internet’s biggest flaws" (Oct. 25)

Chris Alcantara dove into the particulars in yet another piece, "The most challenging job of the 2016 race: Editing the candidates’ Wikipedia pages." Describing Wikipedia as producing what amounts to an "election guide", Alcantara summarized Wikipedia editors' efforts to choose the most appropriate photos to illustrate articles on U.S. presidential nominees Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and presented graphics summarizing the frequency of edits to a number of presidential candidates' Wikipedia biographies, in several election cycles. The article featured interviews with several Wikipedia editors.

These stories from the Post add to the paper's wide variety of Wikipedia-related coverage in the last year. In December 2015, reporter Caitlin Dewey published "Wikipedia has a ton of money. So why is it begging you to donate yours?", which was followed up by stories in Germany, England, Italy, and elsewhere. The next month, it ran Wikipedia historian Andrew Lih's op-ed for Wikipedia's 15th birthday, "Wikipedia just turned 15 years old. Will it survive 15 more?" And, as we reported in last week's In the media, columnist Gene Weingarten recently wrote about his frustrations in trying to update the photo on his own Wikipedia biography. (Oct. 27) PF

In brief

This is not Wikipedia.
  • Not so neutral!: The Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank, posted an article on the same day as the first Washington Post piece above calling Wikipedia "broken, biased, and corrupt". Their primary concern appears to be editing disputes over the Institute's own article, which is part of a long-running debate. (Oct 19)
  • Are you ready for some football?: English football magazine FourFourTwo highlighted four Wikipedia editors who keep football (soccer to Americans) pages up to date. (Oct 19)
  • LGBTQ edit-a-thon: Bucknell University hosted a Wiki Loves Pride edit-a-thon on October 14. (Oct 20).
  • Wikipedia is not Wikileaks: Democratic member of Congress Sheila Jackson Lee mistakenly blamed Wikipedia instead of WikiLeaks for the recent release of emails from the Hillary Clinton campaign. The two organizations are completely unrelated, as one can see from reading the WikiLeaks article. Just a regular slip of the tongue, it appears. (Oct. 22)
  • Area politician article vandalized: Unlike the Hillary Clinton article, where vandalism was quickly reverted, a New York state legislator's article was vandalized to say he "has been on the public dole for more than three decades", and this edit was not caught for almost three days, as reported by local media. (See diff.) The article appears to average only 50 views per day, so the delay in being caught, though regrettable, does not seem surprising. (Oct 22).
  • Paid editing to go: The Register spotted a car in London with full-coverage advertising for paid BLP reputation services. (Oct 24)
  • Anonymous edits from political staffers: In Australia, "The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet has ordered the heads of the Defence, Foreign Affairs and Trade, Health, Agriculture and Parliamentary Services departments to urgently investigate possible breaches of government IT policy and report back in a week." An investigation was launched after discovery that public servants and staffers had made "tens of thousands" of Wikipedia edits. Some were mildly amusing or otherwise innocuous, but others were offensive and potentially embarrassing to public officials. (Oct. 26)



Do you want to contribute to "In the media" by writing a story or even just an "in brief" item? Edit next week's edition in the Newsroom or contact the editor.


2016-11-04

New guideline for technical collaboration

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By Evad37 and Headbomb

Draft Technical Collaboration Guideline

A Technical Collaboration Guideline (TCG) has been drafted by the Wikimedia Foundation's Technical Collaboration team, led by Keegan Peterzell. The TCG documents best practices for involving the Wikimedia communities in technical developments and deployments. It focuses on communication and collaboration, rather than software creation processes, as development plans, goals, and expectations can vary between projects. The draft TCG has sections on software development principles, prioritisation, private planning, milestone communication, translation, and community decisions.

The initial TCG draft was based on discussions with the WMF's Community Liaisons and Product managers, reflecting on how to encourage collaboration, and past communication success and failures. Over the past few years, there have been multiple controversial product deployments, such as the VisualEditor (see previous Signpost coverage) and Media Viewer (see previous Signpost coverage).

The community is invited to review the proposed guideline and leave feedback. Discussion to date has focused on managing the translation load. E

Citation templates now better at flagging free-access content

Citation templates form an integral part of Wikipedia and are intimately linked to our policies on verifiability through reliable sources. Citation templates are currently used on more than 3,000,000 articles on the English Wikipedia. They are used to quickly format references and benefit from advanced logic that provides additional functionality; they facilitate both error-checking and bot-assistance maintenance, and integrate themselves with tools that allow for the automated filling of these templates based on external bibliographic databases such as CrossRef. For instance, 

*{{cite journal |last1=Luallen |first1=R. J. |display-authors=etal |year=2016 |title=Discovery of a Natural Microsporidian Pathogen with a Broad Tissue Tropism in ''Caenorhabditis elegans'' |journal=PLOS Pathogens |volume=12 |issue=6 |pages=e1005724 |doi=10.1371/journal.ppat.1005724}}

will display the following fully formatted, machine-readable reference:

  • Luallen, R. J.; et al. (2016). "Discovery of a Natural Microsporidian Pathogen with a Broad Tissue Tropism in Caenorhabditis elegans". PLOS Pathogens. 12 (6): e1005724. doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1005724. PMC 4928854. PMID 27362540.
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Over the past few months, Trappist the monk, Pintoch, Headbomb, and many commenters have toiled on citation templates to facilitate the flagging of freely accessible content, in line with Wikipedia's commitment to promoting free culture and open access where possible. As part of the overhaul, access icons have been designed to be displayed for various levels of access:

– for a full version of a source that is freely accessible, with no conditions
– for a full version of a source that is freely accessible, with some conditions (e.g. free registration is required, only the first 5 reads are free, etc.)
– for a full version of a source that is not freely accessible (e.g. paid subscription is required).

The appearance of these icons is currently under debate, and should not yet be considered final or set in stone. The access icons are supported by both Citation Style 1 (like {{cite book}} and {{cite journal}}) and Citation Style 2 ({{citation}}) templates. Identifier templates like {{arxiv}}, {{bibcode}}, and {{doi}} will be updated to match the behaviour of the citation templates so that manually formatted references can benefit from the new locks. The exact behaviour of the citation templates as to when those locks should be displayed is also currently under debate. What is presented below is the as-of-writing behaviour of the template, after the first round of updates, and should not yet be considered final.

URL

Because links from |url= are normally freely available, non-free links (given in |url=) can now be flagged as restricted/non-free via |url-access=

  • |url-access=free – unsupported, per the convention that unflagged URLs should be free. If it does become supported, it will display a green open lock, for when full versions are freely accessible to everyone
  • |url-access=registration – will display a yellow dashed lock, for when a free registration is required to access the full version of an article
  • |url-access=limited – will display a yellow dashed lock, for when free access is provided on a limited basis, for example if only the first few views of an article are free
  • |url-access=subscription – will display a red closed lock, for when payment is required to access the source.

The |registration=yes and |subscription=yes options are now discouraged, and should be replaced with |url-access=registration and |url-access=subscription, respectively. This will resolve the ambiguity of the message in a case like:

where it is unclear which link requires registration; whereas the new style will make it clear:

  • (new) Smith, J. (2016). "Fictitious title". Fictitious Journal. 1 (2): 3. arXiv:1001.1234. doi:10.1234/123456.

Whether the templates should support |url-access=free to display green locks after the primary link is currently under debate. The full deprecation of |registration=yes and |subscription=yes will depend on the outcome of the RFC.

Always-free identifiers

Several identifiers, namely:

will always link to freely available sources, and will automatically display the green open lock.

Sometimes-free identifiers

Identifiers that link to sometimes freely available full versions can now be flagged with |<id>-access=free, where <id> stands for the associated identifier parameter. That is:

Whether the templates should support |<id>-access=limited/registration/subscription to display yellow and red locks after these identifiers is currently under debate.

Always non-free identifiers

Non-free identifier, or identifiers that never link to full versions of the reference, remain plain. These include:

Whether the templates should support |<id>-access=limited/registration/subscription to display yellow and red locks after these identifiers is currently under debate.

But what does this mean for me?

Flagging free-to-read identifiers (or articles that are not free-to-read) is optional: no one is required to make use of the new features of the citation templates. However, those who like to go the extra mile should easily be able to adapt to the new system.

If you cite freely accessible sources with a template like {{cite web|url=http://www.example.com|title=...}}, or offline sources through templates like {{cite book}}, there is (as of now) no need to change how you do things. However, if you cite registration- or subscription-based online mainstream publications, it is best to add |url-access=registration or |url-access=subscription. These replace the current |registration=yes and |subscription=yes (which are now discouraged and will likely be phased out over the next few months), or alternatively, the need to append {{registration required}} and {{subscription required}} templates after citations.

If you cite scientific journals with a template like {{cite journal|doi=10.1234/123456|title=...}}, it can be tricky to determine whether the source is freely accessible, especially if you work in academia or are a college/university student. Academic institutions will often have subscriptions, and all internet traffic going through the institution's servers will be granted access. For those reasons, it is best if you verify whether a source is free to read when you are at home before adding |doi-access=free, unless you know the journal has an open-access policy. (The same applies for the other identifiers, like |jstor= and |jstor-access=free.)

New bots like User:OAbot will be developed to make use of the new parameters (subject to trial and community consensus), while existing bots like User:Citation bot and User:Bibcode Bot can be updated to make use of them.

I don't use citation templates. Does this affect me?

If you don't use citation templates, then this shouldn't affect you. However, if you do make use of identifier templates like {{arxiv}}, {{bibcode}}, and {{doi}}, those will be updated to match the behaviour of the citation templates. If they end up supporting only |doi-access=free, so will {{doi}}. But if they end up supporting |doi-access=free/limited/registration/subscription, then so too will {{doi}}.

Community resources and coordinated efforts

Readers interested in improving the flagging of free-to-read sources can coordinate efforts at WP:SIGNAL, a subsection of WikiProject Open Access. If you have an idea for a new bot but lack the technical skill or time to make one, you can make request for one at WP:BOTREQ. If you know of additional identifiers (especially free ones) that should be supported by citation templates, make a request at Help:CS1. H

In brief

New user scripts to customise your Wikipedia experience

Newly approved bot tasks

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community: 2016 #42, #43, & #44. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available on Meta.

Installation code

Further information: Wikipedia:User scripts § How to install user scripts
  1. ^ Copy the following code, click here, then paste:
    importScript( 'User:PerfektesChaos/js/listPageOptions/r.js' ); // Backlink: User:PerfektesChaos/js/listPageOptions/r.js
  2. ^ Copy the following code, click here, then paste:
    importScript( 'User:NQ/WatchlistResetConfirm.js' ); // Backlink: User:NQ/WatchlistResetConfirm.js


Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-11-04/Essay Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-11-04/Opinion


2016-11-04

Finally, a new CTO; trustee joins Quora; copyright upgrade impending

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By Pete Forsyth and Tony1

Wikimedia Foundation fills long-vacant CTO position

Victoria Coleman, the new chief technology officer, will be vital to the Foundation's performance

The Wikimedia Foundation has hired Victoria Coleman to serve as its chief technology officer (CTO). (blog post; press release; email list announcement). The CTO role, widely seen as vital to an organization for which technology has always been the central focus, has been vacant since Danese Cooper left the organization in July 2011. Several former and current WMF staff, however, noted that various others have played the role of CTO in the interim, to some degree, without adopting the formal title. According to the announcement, Coleman "will be responsible for setting the vision and strategy for technology and operations behind the Wikimedia projects, in cooperation with the global communities of volunteer contributors, users, and researchers."

Coleman’s resume includes roles with Technicolor, Harman, Yahoo, Nokia, Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, Intel, and SRI International. She also worked on security-related projects, including authoring a report on creation of a legal framework for the safety of programmable electronic systems procurement in the UK, and the establishment of a cybersecurity research center in the US.

Executive director Katherine Maher said in the announcement: "Victoria brings the right combination of deep technical knowledge, operational expertise, and the steady hand that is needed in this unique role."

One message from an email list participant, inquiring into Coleman’s perspective on a user privacy issue that may intersect with her past work, prompted an extended response from Maher. Maher emphasized the importance of having a diversity of backgrounds represented among staff, and the value of Coleman’s security experience in the government IT sector.

Coleman will take up the role on November 7. PF

Foundation trustee to join Quora as finance officer

WMF trustee Kelly Battles

Foundation trustee Kelly Battles announced that she has taken a position as chief financial officer (CFO) for Quora. The announcement, which addresses the possibility of a legal conflict of interest arising from the new position, appears to be Battles' first public communication since her brief introductory statement on joining the Board of Trustees in January 2016. Battles was Bracket Computing’s CFO when she assumed the unpaid WMF Board position.

Quora, a for-profit company, runs a question-and-answer website that has drawn frequent comparisons to Wikipedia since its launch in 2010 (past Signpost coverage). Quora co-founder Adam D'Angelo noted the influence of Wikipedia on the site's design in a TechCrunch article, and computer scientist Seb Paquet addressed the connection in the popular article "Why Quora is not Wikipedia" for Quora Review, both in 2011. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales describes himself as “an advisor to and (very small) investor in Quora,” and has answered some 864 questions on the site. Quora itself features many questions and answers related to the connections between the two sites.

Some discussion about the potential for COI in Battles’ new role ensued on the email list.PF

Editorial note: Wiki Strategies, the company owned by editor Pete Forsyth, advised the Quora team prior to the site’s 2010 launch.

The WMF seeks input on whether to update the Wikimedia Terms of Use to specify version 4.0 of the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license (CC BY-SA) (an upgrade from version 3.0 of the same license); the consultation runs to November 8. The change would be the first since the WMF's move in 2009 from the old GNU FDL that had been in use since Wikipedia launched. The 2009 change was spearheaded by deputy director Erik Möller and trustee Kat Walsh. At the time, some European Wikimedians objected to the legal interaction with their own copyright codes; this may be prompting some expressions of caution about the current proposal.

For the 4.0 version, released in 2013, Creative Commons prioritized creating a “more global license,” consulting with hundreds of volunteers around the world to improve the fit with various legal jurisdictions, and to simplify and translate the legal code and the simpler “deeds,” or summaries for non-lawyers, into many languages. In addition, the 4.0 version for the first time presents a unified CC BY-SA license for various legal jurisdictions, rather than separate “ported” versions designed specifically for each country’s laws.

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Two changes noted in the discussions to date are database rights and the process whereby reusers who violate the license can correct their actions within a 30-day window. Database rights have been assuming ever-greater online importance, with significant implications for the way societies deal with the ongoing explosion in structured information. While most jurisdictions still lack database copyright law—in which compiling a database apparently confers copyright, whether online or in hard copy—uploaders in jurisdictions that do have database copyright law must satisfy both the local law and the provisions of the Creative Commons license. For this reason, the WMF's adoption of the new version is planned to present a waiver of potential database rights, which, according to that link target on Meta Wiki, gives permission to use material that is ineligible for copyright protection, but is eligible for protection as part of a database. The proposal intends "that the rights in Wikimedia content are internationally consistent and consistent with Wikipedia's past rights in contributions under version 3.0 of the license." Wikidata, however, will not be transitioning to a new license under the proposal; it has used, and will continue to use, the CC0 public domain dedication rather than CC BY-SA. T


In brief

  • WikiCite conference: WikiCite is an effort built around creating a bibliographic database in Wikidata to serve all Wikimedia projects. Its first annual conference was held in Berlin in May 2016. It has now launched the WikiCite Newsletter, which will be published quarterly. Note: Those interested in citations shouldn’t miss this edition's feature.
  • Shortlist for Wikipedia Women in Red: Wikipedia Women In Red has been shortlisted for for the 2016 United Nations GEM-TECH Awards.
  • Wikidata celebrated its fourth birthday with events on four continents.
  • CIS newsletter: The September issue of the India-based Centre for Internet and Society – Access to Knowledge Newsletter reported on learnings about Wikipedia’s gender gap, a campaign to freely license copyrighted books in the Telegu language, and more.
  • Long-standing WMF staffer departs: Rob Lanphier, the WMF director of architecture, has left the organization. Lanphier, hired in 2010, was one of the WMF’s longest-tenured staff members, and recently reached a 15-year milestone as a Wikipedia editor.
  • Signpost co-editor in chief departs: We at the Signpost will miss the guidance and contributions of Andreas Kolbe, our co-editor-in-chief since May 2016. To mark his departure, Andreas wrote:
    "At present, I simply don't have the time required to do all the necessary reading to stay abreast of Wikimedia affairs, and to pull my weight in writing articles and preparing Signpost issues for publication. As a result, I've decided to resign as co-editor-in-chief of the Signpost. I don't want to do so without taking the opportunity to thank all my past and present Signpost colleagues. Particular thanks go to Tony, Ed and Gamaliel for the kind welcome they extended to me (markworthy to me because I did most of my early writing about Wikipedia as a Wikipedia critic, lambasting the project for its flaws). I'm happy to have met all of them in person—they're great company and have been splendid colleagues to work with, and I'm proud of the work we did together. My main regret is that I did not have more time to share the task of managing the Signpost with Pete, something I was looking forward to, and that my absence has added to his workload. But I hope to be able to return as a Signpost contributor at some point in the future, so this is good-bye rather than adieu."


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2016-11-04

Recapping October's activities

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By GamerPro64


This edition of the Arbitration Report covers the month of October 2016.

Michael Hardy case

On 1 October, the Michael Hardy case closed. ArbCom issued remedies, reminders were given to Michael Hardy and MjolnirPants, and ArbCom reminded itself to exercise care about scope creep when taking up future cases.

The Rambling Man case

The Rambling Man case closed on 13 October. The Rambling Man resigned his administrator role and is "prohibited from insulting and/or belittling other editors." Other remedies include The Rambling Man and George Ho having an interaction ban and George Ho being restricted from selecting main page content. ArbCom also encouraged the Wikipedia community "to review the selection process for the Did you know and In the news sections of the main page."

Administrator desysoped and banned

On 5 October, a CheckUser on Ricky81682, a ten-year administrator with more than 100,000 Wikipedia edits, revealed that they had used multiple accounts from 13 July to 7 August 2016. Activities included articles for deletion; the user did not account for the sock puppetry. The Committee removed Ricky's administration rights and banned them indefinitely. In the event the ban is lifted, the user will be eligible for a new request for adminship.

In brief

  • Changes in CheckUser and Oversight teams: Throughout the month of October, a change of positions in CheckUser and Oversight occurred. Coren had CheckUser permissions removed due to inactivity. Euryalus, FloNight, and Roger Davies also resigned from their teams. In their place, ArbCom appointed KrakatoaKatie as a CheckUser and Oversighter and MusikAnimal as a CheckUser. Ks0stm returned to Oversight duty after being inactive and Beeblebrox returned to the Oversight and CheckUser teams after resigning in May 2015.


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