Arbitration report
WMF Legal and ArbCom weigh in on tension between disclosure requirements and user privacy
Special report
Wolves nip at Wikipedia's heels: A perspective on the cost of paid editing
News and notes
Official WMF rebuke to Trump policy; WMF secures restricted funds
WikiProject report
For the birds!
Op-ed
How to make editing workshops useful, even if participants don't stick around
In the media
Presidential politics, periodic table, and our periodic roundup of updates
Technology report
Better PDFs, backup plans, and birthday wishes
Traffic report
Cool It Now
Featured content
Three weeks dominated by articles
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The Arbitration Committee has long played an essential role in interpreting and enforcing "a ridiculously complex system of interweaving and contradictory policies, guidelines, and usual processes", as longtime Wikipedian Risker stated in a 2013 recap of her tenure as an arbitrator. In particular, tension between user privacy and enforcement of rules centered on user identity has arisen frequently, especially since the 2014 amendment of Wikimedia's terms of use to require disclosure by paid editors. That requirement often clashes with individual Wikipedia contributors' preference to keep details about their identities private.
On January 18, in responses to community requests, the Wikimedia Foundation's legal department published an essay outlining its interpretation and advice on that tension. The statement asserted that the WMF's role is merely advisory; it also clarified that the privacy policy addresses cases where the WMF itself collects information on the sites' users, and does not apply to cases where information has been publicly shared. But it also asserted a clear distinction between the English Wikipedia harassment policy and the disclosure requirements:『if someone is editing for a company and fails to disclose it, an admin properly posting that person’s company where it is relevant to an investigation is part of their job to help bring the account into compliance with those requirements.』The statement further outlined factors that community members might use to inform difficult decisions, and three types of assistance the WMF legal department can offer.
On January 26, ArbCom published its own statement, responding to that of WMF's legal department. ArbCom's statement noted areas in which its 11 signatories disagreed with the legal team; for instance, ArbCom asserted that "being doxxed and treated in ways the community has defined as harassment is not a reasonable consequence of noncompliance with a website's terms of use."
The initial Arbcom response was signed by eleven members of the committee. The committee took issue with the WMF statement on doxxing which said:『if someone is editing for a company and fails to disclose it, an admin properly posting that person’s company where it is relevant to an investigation is helping bring the account into compliance with those requirements.』Arbcom objected to what it characterized as "an almost unbounded exemption to the outing policy to allow people to post public information on any individual they believe is engaging in undisclosed paid editing." Arbcom called for clarification of the definition of paid editing, noting the possibility of disproportionate consequences for relatively insignificant instances where an editor accepts payment. Finally, ArbCom raised a concern about the "perceived force of authority" of the statement, irrespective of it being tagged as merely an advisory essay.
Several individual arbitrators expanded on the statement commented in their individual capacities, on the same page linked above.
James Heilman, a longtime Wikipedian and former WMF trustee, posted a list of several venues where relevant discussion has, or is currently, taken place. GP & PF
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From 2013 until its demise in January 2017, Banc De Binary (BDB), a financial broker based in Israel, drew an international stream of accusations and regulatory penalties. Following a lawsuit and negative media reports about the company, a cohort of mostly undisclosed paid editors sought to influence the firm's coverage on Wikipedia.
Given the multiple, time-consuming deletion requests, sockpuppet investigations, and content disputes, it is clear the effort took its toll on Wikipedia's volunteer editors and functionaries. Can we quantify how much such an incident costs Wikipedia? Certainly there's the cost in editor time that could be used better elsewhere. There's the cost of administrative time spent in investigating sock puppets, banning editors, and the like. There's the cost of a diminished reputation for accuracy. And there can be significant costs to our readers from trusting an article or acting on the information in it.
BDB advertised itself as a leader in binary options, an industry viewed with great skepticism by many regulators and journalists. Exposés of scam artists in the industry now abound with titles like 80% losses guaranteed!, Ex-binary options salesman: Here is how we fleece the clients and The unethical sellers of dreams. One victim, after losing $113,250, told her BDB broker that she had no more money left to send him, according to computer records obtained by the Financial Times. The broker answered, "Don't you have a kidney? Sell it."
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office has called for a worldwide ban on binary options trading.
A2013 sockpuppet investigation led to the determination that the initial version of the article had been created by a sock puppet. Scubadoofeck re-created the article, but was then banned as a sock puppet of User:Morning277. Morning277 had been a central figure in the 2013 Wiki-PR paid editing scandal, in which over 250 accounts were blocked or banned. The article has been deleted twice, has been the subject of at least three additional deletion requests, and has been the subject of extensive edit warring. A biography of the company's CEO was also deleted three times in 2013.
The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) licensed BDB as a broker in January 2013, allowing BDB to trade in many European Union countries. Though BDB was fined four times by CySEC, BDB kept its license until January 2017, when the company closed.
In June 2013 two US regulators, the SEC and the CFTC, filed civil suits against BDB and jointly issued a warning against the entire non-US binary options industry.
An external link to these civil suits was placed in the article two days later, prompting a protracted edit war. In May 2014, an editor nominated the article for deletion; that editor was blocked as yet another sockpuppet the next day. During the intervening 11 months, nearly 500 edits were made. An IP editor (traceable to Israel) claiming to be BDB CEO Oren Shabat Laurent, made five identical edits in the same day, all of which were reverted, to include highlights of Laurent's biography, and lists of products and countries served. He also reduced the coverage of the regulators' lawsuits and buried it at the bottom of the article. The article was protected due to edit warring, and vacillated between semi- and full protection until June 2014.
In May 2014, an editor observed changes in web search results relating to BDB, and asserted that the Wikipedia efforts might be part of a search engine optimization (SEO) effort to remove and de-emphasize coverage of the company's bad press from the web. The Times of Israel later noted, under a headline decrying the "wolves of Tel Aviv", that SEO『expertise has plainly been applied by fraudulent binary options firms, whose affiliated sites show up high in Google searches — sending unsuspecting and naive clients their way.』
The article was kept after an Articles for Deletion discussion, despite the participation of User:BDBJack, who had declared he was working for BDB, and eight other editors whose comments were discounted as "obvious single-purpose accounts and socks".
User:BDBIsrael, later indefinitely blocked along with BDBJack, also stated that he was paid by BDB. In June he began relaying messages from the BDB board of directors, clearly stating that BDB had been a customer of Wiki-PR and naming several editors who either worked for BDB directly or through Wiki-PR. One of the editors who worked directly for BDB, User:Notsosoros was indefinitely blocked along with 37 related accounts for sockpuppeting. Most of these socks were apparently "sleeper accounts"—deceptive accounts being prepared to be used later—which hadn't yet edited the BDB article.
Word was posted on Wikipedia that BDB had advertised a five figure fee for "crisis management" of the article. This posting rallied Wikipedia editors to fight for an unbiased article.
A sock puppet started the editing in June 2014 with a request for speedy deletion [1]. 106 edits and six days later, the article was placed under full protection. On June 4 a well-known paid editor, who told the Signpost that he never accepted money from BDB, started another article deletion request, but the article was speedily kept. Three days later, he deleted 88% of the article text. The article talk page was even busier, with about 450 edits that month.
On June 16, 2014 the Wikimedia Foundation announced a new requirement for paid editors as part of Wikipedia's terms of use. Paid editors from that date forward were formally required to declare their paid status, their employer, clients, and other relevant affiliations, so that other editors could easily review their work. Paid editing at the BDB article slowed immediately. Only two banned or permanently blocked editors edited the article until 2016.
2016 was a rough year for BDB. In January Israel changed its law to make trading binary options with its citizens illegal. In February BDB settled the US regulatory cases with $11 million in fines and restitution, and an agreement not to trade with or even indirectly solicit US residents. The Times of Israel ran a series of detailed exposés on the binary options industry, starting with "The wolves of Tel Aviv: Israel's vast, amoral binary options scam exposed" One article focused on BDB. The prime minister’s office condemned the whole industry, and the Knesset scheduled hearings on stopping all binary options trading in Israel. CySEC fined BDB four times and there were other regulatory setbacks in Australia, New Zealand, France, Belgium, and Belize.
This did not appear to stop the undisclosed paid editing on the BDB article. Four accounts, later banned or permanently blocked, removed content from the article in 2016: FoCuSandLeArN, Tianderni, Beranpolti, and Euclidthalis.
BDB fought hard to push its advertising into the article, and to remove news of its regulatory problems. Wikipedia editors and administrators fought harder and did a good job under the circumstances. Perhaps Wikipedia editors, myself included, could have been clearer: a reader skimming the article might have drawn the erroneous conclusion that BDB was a legitimate business with just a few problems with regulators. Of course we are constrained by what reliable secondary sources say – we could not have written, for instance, "BDB is a scam" unless several sources had printed that.
Coverage of BDB in Wikipedia's German, Greek, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish editions was less informative than in the English edition. All the articles were created from 2013–14. They appear to have been translated from one of the English article versions written by BDB; all but one had a small paragraph on US regulation buried at the bottom.
The creator of the Spanish article got his account globally locked as a "spam only account", but the article stayed pretty much the same until December 2016. The Greek and Russian articles stayed much as originally written. The German and Portuguese articles started in 2013 with word of BDB’s regulatory problems in the lede, but those sentences were deleted in June 2014.
A prolonged conflict around an article impacts Wikipedia's most valuable resource—volunteer time—and impacts the quality of information conveyed to its readers. All of these should be regarded as significant costs to the Wikipedia project. Furthermore, to whatever extent Wikipedia's readers take detrimental action based on faulty information from Wikipedia, those individuals share in the cost, as well.
In total, three editors of the English-language article were banned as sock puppets of Morning277, and 17 others were banned or indefinitely blocked. These editors all pushed BDB's point of view. A couple dozen more were blocked as sock puppets of a BDB employee before they could edit the BDB article.
With 781 edits to the article and 870 edits to the talk page, BDB likely consumed hundreds of hours of our editors' time. Eight related deletion requests, two massive edit wars, 20 banned or blocked editors, and years of page protection likely used hundreds more hours of administrators' time.
The Israeli binary options industry is reported to take in more than US$1 billion per year. BDB reported unaudited revenues of $100 million in 2014. How much of that came from Wikipedia readers can only be guessed. But given the time and money BDB spent trying to manipulate the article on Wikipedia, it must have been a very large amount. Maybe we should all count our kidneys, and keep our eyes on the wolves.
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The Wikimedia Foundation's executive director Katherine Maher at WikiConference North America in 2016
On 30 January, Katherine Maher published a WMF blog in which she branded the new US administration's executive order banning immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries (an action now partially stayed by several federal judges) as one that "threatens our freedoms of inquiry and exchange", and "infringes on the fundamental rights of our colleagues, our communities, and our families".
Maher's statement continues a trend for the Foundation to assume a more active role in advocacy. Unlike the coordinated service blackout by Wikimedia and other sites to protest against the copyright-related SOPA bill before the US Congress in 2012—a bill with substantial support from both major political parties—the blog concerns an action by a specific US administration. Maher's statement illustrates the difficulty of insulating the movement's visions from politics. As one Wikimedian put it on the Wikimedia-L mailing list: "writing an encyclopedia is a political act". Another person cast this in a broader perspective: "being in favour of sharing free knowledge is altogether a political statement, as freedom of sharing knowledge is not something which is accepted by all political regimes (please remember the globality of the movement".
The SOPA incident marked the WMF's hiring of a DC lobbying firm, Dow Lohnes, which advocated for the Foundation from then until the end of 2013, when it merged with law firm Cooley LLP 2014. The WMF retained Cooley to fight the lawsuit Internet Brands brought against two Wikimedia volunteers later in 2012. The Foundation hired a second lobbyist, Thompson Coburn, to monitor copyright legislation.
Maher's blog was variously supported and condemned on the Wikimedia mailing list. There were several complaints of a lack of community discussion beforehand. One contributor wrote that "needlessly and divisively injecting this kind of politics ... is neither healthy nor appropriate". Another replied to a comment that had supported the blog: "I imagine that your response would be different if Katherine's position didn't match your own. ... taking political positions beyond the mission is fraught with risk".
The ban has threatened the situations of many people working in the US technology sector, on the basis of their countries of origin; the Signpost understands that this may include several WMF employees or contractors. As well, the action may create difficulties for the Wikimedia community offline. According to one contributor: "There were speakers and delegates at Wikimania 2012, in Washington DC, who would not have been able to attend under the current ban. I therefore have no problem with the WMF speaking out against such a ban; indeed I applaud them for doing so." Other Wikimedians were supportive: "Having a truly 'neutral point of view' when it comes to anything regarding Donald Trump is not really possible. I support and applaud Katherine Maher's statement on the WMF blog." In a post entitled Politics, Christophe Henner, the chair of the WMF Board, weighed in with a strongly worded statement, ending with this proposition:
... as a movement, we have the potential to have a huge impact on the world. That is not neutral, that is a force of change and change always is political".
Just before publication, Michelle Paulson, the WMF's interim general counsel, posted a follow-up announcement to the list, including clarifications of the WMF's views on taking policy positions. Among Paulson's comments was this:
Today, the Wikimedia Foundation joined with more than 90 other organizations in filing an amicus brief in State of Washington v. Trump currently before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals of the United States. This case challenges the recent executive order issued in the United
States on January 27, 2017, which establishes immigration and travel restrictions based on country of origin. Other signatories to the brief include Facebook, Levi Strauss & Co., Microsoft, Mozilla, and Paypal.
The Wikimedia Foundation announced two grants in January 2017: US$3 million from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, announced January 9; and $500,000 from two charities affiliated with Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, announced January 26. The Sloan grant will fund improving the data structure of Wikimedia Commons, and has been discussed here; the Newmark grants will fund tools to assist in the prevention of harassment and "toxic behavior" on Wikipedia, and have been discussed here. The substance of each grant was greeted by Wikimedia community members with enthusiasm, though commentators also expressed skepticism on several points.
Discussion extended beyond the grants' substance, as some questioned the WMF's approach to restricted funding. Memories of the WMF's pursuit of restricted funds for the Knowledge Engine, which was widely understood to represent a substantial but undisclosed strategic shift for the organization, may drive some of the concern. One participant made pointed and repeated requests that the WMF publicly release its high-level product roadmap, and pointed to the initial announcement as evidence that such a document exists.
In response to a request from the Signpost, Lisa Seitz-Gruwell, the WMF's chief advancement officer, confirmed that the Sloan grant is the second-largest restricted grant in the organization's history, behind only the Stanton Foundation's $3.6 million grant to fund the VisualEditor software.
As a side note, this answers an open question about the VisualEditor grant. Community members had asked upon the grant's 2011 announcement whether or not it was restricted, but to our knowledge, no official answer was ever supplied. The WMF has a longstanding policy of publishing restricted grants' documents when possible, and a 2010 Stanton grant's plan was published; Seitz-Gruwell confirmed, however, that no grant documents from the 2011 VisualEditor grant have been published.
Shortly after the initial announcement of the Sloan grant, the WMF published three detailed documents from the grant application. The Signpost is not yet aware of any public documents from the Newmark grants; if any are published, we will link them in the comments or in a future update. (Update: See the comments below for two relevant links.) PF, Feb. 6, 2017
As the WMF continues to pursue funding restricted to specific programs and projects, it will likely continue to face questions around the philosophy driving its approach, the plans establishing the context for the restricted funds, and the level of influence exerted by funders or WMF staff pursuing funding. PF
A photogaph of Neuschwanstein Castle, a talking point for issues related to free-license attribution by re-users in Austria
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On January 11, the consulting firm Williamsworks was announced as part of the core team that will run the Wikimedia Foundation's US$2.5 million strategic planning process. Williamsworks was founded in 2003 by Whitney Williams, a member of a prominent political family in the U.S. state of Montana. While the firm's international and philanthropic experience clearly align with the WMF's criteria for the role, it is also known for previously advising at least one organization with an ongoing leadership and public relations crisis—a skillset that may prove valuable to the WMF.
Nicholas Dirks, the outgoing chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, was a prior client of Williamsworks.
The firm—whose website advertises expertise in "public policy, politics, philanthropy, communications and global development"—was noted in August 2016 for having crafted an ambitious public relations plan for the University of California, Berkeley, one of the world's elite universities. UC Berkeley's chancellor, Nicholas Dirks, announced his resignation that month following sustained criticism over financial matters and over his reponse to a string of sexual misconduct cases. One widely reported example was the university's construction of a $700,000 fence around Dirks' residence, as well as an "emergency exit"—reported as a manifestation of mutual mistrust between university leadership and its students and community. Williamsworks crafted a plan to "improve the Chancellor’s strategic profile nationally and internationally", and aimed to secure speaking engagements at prominent venues like TED Talks and the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Like UC Berkeley, the WMF had substantial difficulties in 2016, and has since sought to rebuild trust in its community, in part through its promotion of former WMF communications director Katherine Maher to the post of executive director. Introducing his March 2016 Signpost interview with Maher, reporter Tony1 observed: "Getting people to trust each other and work together appears to be a hallmark of her style." Subsequent Signpost interviews with several Wikimedia volunteers echoed the theme of trust.
Whether or not Williamsworks pursues top-tier speaking engagements for WMF leadership, it does appear to bring experience in one critical area beyond those explicitly identified in the WMF's published criteria, which centered more on the international Wikimedia movement than the organization.
Williamsworks was one of several small organizations considered for the role by the WMF, starting in late 2016. Lisa Seitz-Gruwell, the WMF's chief advancement officer, responded to a Signpost inquiry, confirming it was she who initially proposed the firm, along with several others, for consideration. Gruwell, who shares roots in Montana politics with Williams, said "Whitney is in my professional network", but added that they have no family relationship, nor has she worked for Williamsworks.
Maher published her fifth update on the strategic planning process on February 2. In addition to Williamsworks personnel, the core strategy team will include Suzie Nussel, an executive marketing consultant initially retained by former WMF executive Lila Tretikov in her previous strategic planning effort, and Guillaume Paumier, a Wikimedian since 2005 and WMF staff member since 2009. The update also describes the core team's initial plan for engaging Wikimedia community members.
The WMF has advertised for 17 language specialist strategy coordinators who are bilingual in English and at least one of a list of other languages. Interim chief of community engagement Maggie Dennis announced that these Wikimedians will be expected to:
Three further positions are available for Meta Wiki strategy coordinators, who will work alongside the language specialist coordinators and others to facilitate the Foundation's inclusive strategy processes. Successful applicants will take up a three-month contract for up to 20 hours per week, beginning in early March 2017. PF & T
The Wikimedia Foundation's Interactive team has been put "on pause" pending further determinations about its future, according to an announcement initially published on the Discovery email list on January 20. A subsequent discussion on the more widely read Wikimedia-L email list revealed concern from a number of Wikimedia volunteers, who—in contrast to extensively covered pushback on a number of WMF software rollouts over the years—expressed enthusiasm for the team's recent offerings.
 | Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org. |
See or edit source data.
The Interactive team is part of the WMF's Discovery department, which may be best known for its origin as the team charged with executing the ill-fated Knowledge Engine project in 2016. But the Interactive team's work bears little resemblance to the Knowledge Engine. The team's two most recent outputs enable interactive maps and data-driven graphics on Wikimedia sites. The latter, built on data sets that can be stored on Wikimedia Commons, appears to have the strongest readership of any Signpost Technology Report in the last year Technology report, driven in part by unusually popular Facebook and Twitter posts illustrating an interactive graphic. Social media responses praised the feature, its origins in a readership survey that found especially strong interest in "rich content", and the lead developer's sustained focus on addressing that interest.
Posts on the email list expressed dismay over the news and the manner of its announcement, which was initially explained by a Discovery product manager in a discussion on the Phabricator site for bug reports: "There were expectations that were set regarding things such as team goals, working collaboratively with stakeholders, and advance notice to communities, that were repeatedly not met by the [Interactive] team." Wikimedia volunteer TheDJ, who first brought up the incident on Wikimedia-L, described the team's work as "more productive and groundbreaking than many other teams have been able to do in 5 years". However, progress in the discussion was gradual, due in part to the absence of the person responsible for the central decision; Katie Horn, Director of Discovery and Fundraising Technology, was out on a scheduled vacation. As the discussion evolved, speculation emerged—later confirmed by Wes Moran, WMF's vice president of Product, in an email to the Signpost—that the Interactive team's lead developer had left the organization.
Responding to a request from the Signpost, Moran addressed the various concerns raised. He said he was "happy that there was respect and enthusiasm for [Interactive's] work." His department is "reviewing how this work is done," and has not made a decision to end it entirely. The immediate focus, he told us, will be to complete work toward goals in the 2016-17 Annual Plan, which runs through June 2017. A review of the annual plan, as well as the Product department's Funds Dissemination Committee application for funding, suggests that the remaining work for the present fiscal year may consist of ways to "connect Wikimedia projects" and enable users to "interlink interactive content across projects." He also pointed to successful projects by other teams in the Product division, noting that Discovery plans to improve the successful search suggestion capability.
ASignpost review of the Discovery department's meeting notes from fiscal year 16–17 (see update below) revealed no obvious related goals for Interactive; the justification for the claim that Interactive had missed goals and expectations remains somewhat opaque. One email from a team member added some context, with the following introductory remarks:
Work on Interactive was led by very energetic and talented technical folks for a good chunk of time without a lot structure around the work. Then,
about a quarter ago, the team tried to start with more planning—a roadmap, team roles, checklists for deployment—the usual stuff. It didn't go well.
Moran expressed confidence that volunteer developers involved in the work of the Interactive team would remain engaged, and stated that further information about work in the Discovery department would be forthcoming: "Wikitech-L and team lists will remain the standard for updates about Wikimedia engineering. We will also be adding a FAQ on MediaWiki.org about the pause and changes to help with the communication." Watch the comment thread below for an update. PF
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Twitter LinkedIn Reddit DiggWikiProject Birds is the go-to place for avian articles. Last featured in our WikiProject report in 2010, the project today reports more than 100 active members. Included in its impressive collection are 154 featured articles (FAs), 89 good articles (GAs), 23 featured lists, and 257 featured pictures.
In November 2016, Jimfbleak posted a call on the project talk page for featured article candidate (FAC) submissions, as more candidates were needed to supply Today's Featured Article. Members responded quickly, and by the end of January, seven bird articles had been promoted to featured status, including mangrove swallow, red-throated loon, red wattlebird, and water pipit.
The Signpost reached out to project members to ask about their experiences working on bird articles, and to find out where they get all of those wonderful pictures.
1. You had a recent successful run of featured article candidate submissions. How did you approach improving each of the articles? What helpful feedback did you receive?
2. What research techniques and other skills do you employ to work on articles?
3. I've always been impressed with good bird photography, and you have many excellent photos of birds on your pages, including over 250 featured pictures. How have you managed to amass so many high-quality, freely-licensed images? Do you have members who focus primarily on photography rather than writing? How do the photographers and writers interact?
4. Your project has a Domestic Pigeon Task Force, which now appears to be inactive. Have there been other attempts to create task forces for this WikiProject?
5. There is also a related WikiProject Poultry, which also appears to be inactive. Do you find that articles on farmed birds such as chickens and turkeys get less attention than those on wild species?
6. Anything else you'd like to add?
Here's hoping that our feathered friends—and their fans—inspire other WikiProject editors to raise more articles to featured status!
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Workshop participants in Portland, Oregon learn about Wikipedia in 2013.
In December 2016 Peter Gallert wrote an op-ed (Operation successful, patient dead) about the Wikipedia workshops he ran in Namibia. He asserted that while the workshops are fun as events, and may even produce a bunch of good edits, they are not effective tools for recruiting new people who will keep editing after the workshop ends.
I have run dozens of workshops for new editors myself since 2009, and sadly, I have to agree with Mr Gallert: Though there are pleasant exceptions, I rarely see people sticking around as editors after the workshop. Research from 2013 arrived at a similar conclusion. I know some workshop organizers who will beg to differ and say that applying certain techniques will make workshops more predictable and measurably effective; but I think everyone will agree that there is no known recipe for running a workshop that is truly efficient at creating new long-term editors.
There is, however, one way in which new editor workshops and other similar real-life events, such as edit-a-thons, are consistently highly effective: Observing new users of Wikipedia and other projects and learning about the technical and social challenges they face, challenges that are too easy for experienced editors to forget. It is very sobering to watch…
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Over the years I saw many, many more issues of this kind. Whenever relevant, I reported them as software bugs or started discussions in appropriate talk pages or mailing lists. Some of the bugs were fixed, and it's great; this is, very clearly, a thing for which workshops are useful.
But it does raise a few issues to consider and to remember.
First, it must be thoroughly remembered that it's not these people's fault, and there isn't something they were "supposed" to know. In the vast majority of those instances, they were trying to do rather sensible things, and to do them in good faith. Lack of computer expertise must also not be blamed—people who contribute to wikis are supposed to be good at the subject about which they are writing, more than they are supposed to be IT professionals. Besides, Wikipedia is different in many ways from a lot of other modern websites, and even people who are IT professionals often find it surprising. These problems are caused by mistakes in software design, by software bugs, by sysops fighting perceived vandalism too eagerly, and by other things inside the project. You organized the workshop for these people, so complaining about them is not productive. Neither is saying that learning all these features is a filter that good Wikimedians will be able to come through—this filter is artificial to say the least.
Furthermore, if not watched, such people will probably remain silent and go away. Thanks to my being there, I was able to address their problems immediately, by explaining what to do, or at least by working around them. The point is not to create a chance that they will remain good editors; most likely, as Mr Gallert says, they won't anyway. But at least they saw a human face that explained them the problem, rather than something totally robotic. And in some cases there is a chance that this problem will be fixed, so that it won't happen to other people at all.
And this brings me to the last point, which sums up all of the above: During the workshop, do make quick notes about the problems people report, and pass them on. Don't ever think that when a user complains or is confused by something, your job is done when you explain why the user is wrong. The user isn't wrong. Neither is your job done when you help the user overcome the problem on the spot. The user might complete the edit, and that is nice, but if the user is unlikely to stick around as an editor anyway, no significant impact will be made. If it confused this user, it may confuse thousands of others. Unless, that is, you report it. Reporting will create a chance that it will be fixed, and this will be an actual, undeniable positive outcome from your workshop.
How should you report it? For posting software bug reports, suggestions for changes and new features, and ideas for better design or workflow, Phabricator is usually the best place. When in doubt whether to report a bug or not to report it, do report it. For issues that are more about community, culture or local templates on your wiki, the appropriate talk pages and mailing lists are the right forum.
Should you treat your editing workshops as just user testing in disguise? No, you absolutely shouldn't. I don't. You should keep treating them as editing workshops, and it won't hurt to keep thinking of ways to make them better recruiting tools. But you should start thinking about them not just as opportunities to change people into being Wikimedians, but also as an opportunity to change your own project into one that is easier for good people to join—and this is in your hands.
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Twitter LinkedIn Reddit DiggChaim Gartenberg of The Verge watched US Inaugural proceedings live in real-time edit-wars and observed that Wikipedia editors can't decide if Trump is the president yet. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales lost his mind on Twitter over "alternative facts", and then engaged with replies. Kastalia Medrano with Inverse asks How Will Wikipedia Navigate the Trump Era? and while discussing "fake news" and editorial bias, notes that, "...Wikipedia editors can't share a bias precisely because of the way the site is structured...". Meanwhile, writer Adrianne Jeffries for The Outline says that The whitehouse.gov reset broke Wikipedia links en masse, and interviews Signpost editor-in-chief Pete Forsyth for his opinion. (January 20-February 2) T
This version of the periodic table of elements, on Wikipedia since 2014, allegedly contains a number of errors.
Astronomer Jennifer A. Johnson created a version of the periodic table of elements, mapped to the composition of the human body. The table improves upon a similar one added to Wikipedia in 2014, and present in nine language editions of the site, and many different articles on English Wikipedia. Johnson elaborated on the errors in the Wikipedia version in her own blog post.
The editor who created the now questionable graphic, Cmglee was contacted and replied about the matter. After looking over the new image, Cmglee requested that Jennifer A. Johnson's corrected version be used. Johnson was also asked to release her table for public use, which she now has.
Cmglee's version was well documented and sourced at the time it was uploaded in 2014, incorporating some feedback from the Wikipedia Science Reference Desk. Cmglee, who used data from Northern Arizona University Meteorite Laboratory and elsewhere, also pointed out that the "incorrect" version was selected as the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day in January of 2016, and noted the "subsequent criticism of its veracity" (in two pages of discussion there about the table). (January 9, January 23) T
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The existing PDF generator skips tables (List of country calling codes § Tree list pictured)
A new way to export pages to PDF files has been developed. The current method of creating PDFs uses the Offline content generator (OCG) service. However, it can be quite problematic for many articles, as tables–including infoboxes–are completely omitted.
There have been multiple requests for table support since the OCG was introduced in 2014. The issue was also raised in 2015 as part of that year's Community Wishlist Survey and German community technical wishlist. Since then, the German Wikimedia chapter (WMDE) has been leading the initiative on enhancing tables in PDF. It was discussed at the 2016 Wikimania Hackathon, where a solution was proposed: offer an alternative PDF download that replicates the look of the website, using browser-based rendering instead of the OCG's LaTeX-based rendering.
A special page will be used to select which rendering to use.
The new PDF creator uses the Electron Service to render pages (using the Chromium web browser as a back end). When enabled on a wiki that already uses the OGC service, clicking "Download as PDF" on the side menu will display a choice of which service to use. The Electron Service was enabled by default on Meta and German Wikipedia last week, and is planned to be deployed to more wikis later.
Acommunity consultation is open on MediaWiki.org regarding the future of PDF rendering. It is proposed to retire the OGC by August this year, once "core" OGC features are available with the Electron service. One such feature is the book creator, which collates multiple articles into a single PDF via the Collection extension. However, there are no plans to provide a two-column option, nor any plans to support conversion to plain-text or other file formats. E
Concerns were raised earlier this week on the wikimedia-l mailing list about the "back-up plan" for Wikimedia.
The most well-known backups are the data dumps of MediaWiki content. Operations Engineer Ariel Glenn, who focuses on the dumps, doesn't consider them to be a form of backup though: the dumps only contain public data that is viewable by all, and just run twice a month.
Glenn further explained that the dumps are currently stored on two servers in the Virginia datacenter, and the most recent ones are also on a third server. They are also mirrored by other organizations, placing copies in California, Illinois, Sweden, and Brazil.
Glenn noted that there are no dumps of images currently. Operations Engineer Filippo Giunchedi said, "We're looking at 120 terabytes of original [files] today." Giunchedi added that files are stored in both the Virginia datacenter and one of the Texas datacenters, so there is some redundancy.
The databases themselves have a high level of redundancy according to Database Administrator Jaime Crespo. The servers themselves use RAID10, and there are about 20 active database replicas across the Virginia and Texas datacenters with the same content that can be cloned if one server goes down. For cases of accidental data loss, there is one server that has a delayed replica by 24 hours in each datacenter.
As far as actual backups, Wikimedia uses bacula as its backup software.
"As far as content goes, we do perform weekly database dumps and store them in an encrypted format in order to provide a pretty good guarantee we will avoid data leak issues via the backups," Operations Engineer Alexandros Kosiaris said. "We've had no such issues yet, but better safe than sorry."
The backups are stored in the Virginia and Texas datacenters, and are deleted after about 45–50 days for privacy policy compliance, Kosiaris explained.
As for improvements, Glenn has been looking for new mirrors for the dumps. Crespo noted that work on selecting a location for a new Asia datacenter is in progress, including discussions with legal. L
The popular Twinkle tool (available as a gadget in Special:Preferences) celebrated its tenth birthday on January 21. Originally started as the rollback script "Twinklefluff" by AzaToth, it now automates or simplifies a plethora of common maintenance tasks, including responding to vandalism, tagging articles, welcoming new users, and admin duties. It is likely that over the past decade, millions of edits have been made using Twinkle. Thank you to everyone who has made Twinkle possible, your efforts are very much appreciated! E
New user scripts to customise your Wikipedia experience
Newly approved bot tasks
{{Don't edit this line {{{machine code|}}}|{{{1}}} with {{Don't edit this line {{{machine code|}}}intaxonomy templates.http:// with https:// for the New York Times domain.Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community: 2017 #3, #4 & #5. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available on Meta.
{{PAGELANGUAGE}}. It returns the language of the page you are at. This can be used on wikis with more than one language to make it easier for translators. (Phabricator task T59603)<chem> to write chemical formulas. Before you could use <ce>. <ce> should be replaced by <chem>. (Phabricator task T153606)#wpTextbox1 { height: 50em; } You can change the number 50 to make it look like you want to. (Phabricator task T26430)
Sometimes edits in MediaWiki by mistake are shown coming from private IP addresses such as 127.0.0.1. Edits and other contributions logged to these IP addresses will be blocked and shown the reason from MediaWiki:Softblockrangesreason. This should not affect most users. Bots and other tools running on Wikimedia Labs, including Tool Labs will receive a "blocked" error if they try to edit without being logged in. (Phabricator task T154698) The Wikimedia technical community is doing a Developer Wishlist survey. The call for wishes closed on 31 January, but discussions are continuing, and the voting phase will be open between 6 and 14 February.importScript( 'User:NKohli (WMF)/megawatch.js' ); // Backlink: User:NKohli (WMF)/megawatch.js
importScript( 'User:Evad37/Watchlist-openUnread.js' ); // Backlink: User:Evad37/Watchlist-openUnread.js
importScript( 'User:Cumbril/RefConsolidate_start.js' ); // Backlink: User:Cumbril/RefConsolidate_start.js
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Twitter LinkedIn Reddit DiggThree weeks of traffic reports, and we welcome Maplestrip, who prepared the report for January 15–21.
Cool It Now: Things may be a bit crazy in American politics these days, but the Traffic Report reminds you that people around the world are also focused on more relaxing activities such as movies, television, and sports, or remembering those who have recently died, including actress Mary Tyler Moore (#2). --Milowent
For the full Top 25 this week, see Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/January 22 to 28, 2017.
For the week of January 22 to 28, 2017, the ten most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:
| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Donald Trump | 
|
2,893,734 |  |
At #1 for the second week in a row. His viewcounts are amazing! Top notch! Most viewed article ever! |
| 2 | Mary Tyler Moore |
|
2,331,504 |  |
This American actress died on January 25. Moore's characters often broke from stereotypical images of women and pushed gender norms, and thus she became a cultural icon and served as an inspiration for many younger actresses, professional women, and feminists. |
| 3 | Melania Trump |
|
1,588,064 |  |
During Donald Trump's campaign, Melania's popularity wasn't always as high as her husband's, but relied on what she did herself. Most notably for this Report, the apex of her popularity was in July 2016 when Melania's convention speech, which lifted some passages from Michelle Obama's 2008 nominating speech for her husband, put her article ahead of Donald's. Now that Melania is officially the First Lady of the United States, we'll have to see if the two articles have any more correlation in views. |
| 4 | John Hurt |
|
1,212,592 |  |
This British actor died on January 25. |
| 5 | Split (2016 American film) | 
|
1,164,561 |  |
Another psychological horror film from M. Night Shyamalan (pictured), released in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada on January 20. On a $9 million budget, it has already grossed over $100 million. Up from #13 (906K views) last week. |
| 6 | Bessie Coleman | 
|
1,108,864 |  |
The first African-American pilot. On January 26, 2017, the 125th anniversary of her birth, a Google Doodle was posted in her honor. |
| 7 | New Edition |
|
1,088,599 | The best American boy band of all time returned to claim a rightful spot in the Top 10. OK, cool it now, Milo. It was actually the airing of a three part miniseries, The New Edition Story, that was responsible. But I am listening to Cool It Now, right now, as I start reading about the popular Indian film that follows this entry. | |
| 8 | Raees (film) |
|
1,088,599 |  |
The Indian action film starring Shah Rukh Khan (pictured) was released on January 25. I really have no idea what it is about but the trailer is exciting, the only thing it is missing is The Rock . |
| 9 | Ed Roberts (activist) |
|
1,028,161 | A pioneering leader of the disability rights movement, the subject of a Google Doodle this week. | |
| 10 | Resident Evil 7: Biohazard |
|
950,183 |  |
This videogame in the Resident Evil series was released on January 24. I'm still listening to New Edition (#7) by the way, the YouTube playlist is on Mr. Telephone Man now, this still really holds up. |
Clothes of the First Ladies: I picked one hell of a week for my first report, that's for sure. The inauguration of Donald Trump occurred on January 20 (though I can still hardly believe it), and the Donald (#1) and his family are, as expected, on the forefront. The top ten is dominated by American politics, both past and present, with Barack Obama (#4) freeing Chelsea Manning (#3) as one of his last political acts and the country celebrating the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr (#9) before the Republican Party outlaws the right to protest. Further down, the list is mostly about media, with the results of the 74th Golden Globe Awards lingering on. It took me all day to compile this list, so I don't know yet if this will be the last time I've done this or not, but it is fun to do and I have learned a lot. – Maplestrip
For the full Top 25 this week, see Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/January 15 to 21, 2017.
For the week of January 15 to 21, 2017, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:
| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Donald Trump |
|
4,487,438 | |
I find it rather weird that the United States doesn't seem to have a system for dealing with botched elections. The Russian interference aside, both major presidential candidates were going through legal situations ranging from tax evasiontoemail classified informationtoliteral rape right as the election was held. Even the president-elect has posted on his Twitter that he believes massive voter fraud had taken place. Regardless, I suppose none of these are good reasons to do a re-election, so it seems to be official now. President Donald Trump. |
| 2 | Melania Trump |
|
2,235,322 | |
News media only seems to care about Melania Trump's shoes, jewelry, and gown this week. Maybe that's because the second foreign-born First Lady of the United States will spend the first half-year of Donald's term in New York with her son, rather than in Washington with her husband. I personally quite like Mrs. Trump, so I hope she'll become more politically influential later on. |
| 3 | Chelsea Manning | 
|
1,976,999 |  |
One of the final acts of 44th President Barack Obama (#4) was to commute the prison sentence of several hundred people, including some who have been convicted for espionage and treason over the years. Among them is 29-year-old Chelsea Manning, who, in 2010, relayed 700,000 military files to WikiLeaks. This political act has been praised by many who found the 35-year prison sentence much too harsh, though some say Manning could have been sentenced for 90 years for what she did. I'm personally quite happy to see her go free, but I don't know if that's because I'm not interested in patriotism or because I'm not American. |
| 4 | Barack Obama | 
|
1,463,253 |  |
Everyone wants to know how Obama will go down in history, and everybody seems to be talking about how successful his administration has been. I don't think comparing him to the likes of George WashingtonorAbraham Lincoln is really fair, but for my two cents, I think people will remember Obama quite fondly. |
| 5 | A Series of Unfortunate Events |
|
1,192,275 |  |
People are probably searching for the television series (#16), though of course it might have reignited interest in Lemony Snicket's book series. Weird that this article outperformed that of the TV series this much, though. |
| 6 | Ivanka Trump |
|
1,174,350 |  |
President Trump's oldest daughter promised back in July that she would fight alongside of her father to ensure the working rights of women. The populace speculates that she will "fill in" for her stepmother while the First Lady lives in New York to be with her child Barron Trump. I am sure Ivanka will take on a big role during this presidential term. |
| 7 | Queen Victoria |
|
1,161,981 |  |
I am quite impressed by Britain's ability to wedge an old queen between all of this contemporary American politics. The US premiere of Victoria was last week, spurring more interest into the royal family's history. TV series on that topic seem to be popular recently. |
| 8 | Betsy DeVos |
|
1,123,350 |  |
President Trump's pick for Secretary of Eduction is clearly the most controversial. Her lack of experience with America's world-infamous student loan system has been pretty harshly criticized by liberals, as has her belief that not all federally-funded schools have to follow the same federal laws (like the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act). |
| 9 | Martin Luther King Jr. |
|
1,008,665 |  |
Last week was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, marking the birthday of the Civil Rights Movement chief spokesman. Of course, this got people interested in the man who was assassinated 49 years ago. I don't think King would have liked the new president. |
| 10 | xXx: Return of Xander Cage |
|
940,185 |  |
The continuation of a film series that started in 2002 once again features Vin Diesel in the lead role, so I am not surprised to see it high on this list. |
A Pat on the Back: Awards are the main theme this week, with the arrival of the 74th Golden Globe Awards, the traditional beginning of Oscar season, and the unexpected (certainly by its recipient) award of the Presidential Medal of FreedombyBarack Obama to his Vice President, Joe Biden. Even some longstanding entries, such as Elizabeth II and Donald Trump are tied into the awards given this week. Also, the people of India seem intent on awarding Aamir Khan's Dangal the title of "highest grossing Indian film of all time". – Serendipodous
For the full Top 25 this week, see Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/January 8 to 14, 2017.
For the week of January 8 to 14, 2017, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:
| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | La La Land (film) |
|
1,101,692 |  |
The acclaimed contemporary musical starring Emma Stone (pictured) won a record seven awards at the 74th Golden Globe Awards, including Best Picture (comedy) and Best Actress for Stone, leading to massive buzz ahead of the Oscars in March. |
| 2 | Ryan Gosling |
|
1,092,495 |  |
Surprisingly, this is the universal object of female lust and male envy's first appearance on this list, as he reminded us to our collective chagrin that aside from being infuriatingly handsome he's also a good actor, having won a Golden Globe this week, immediately bolstering his Oscar chances. |
| 3 | Meryl Streep |
|
1,002,185 |  |
Another surprise first entry for the Greatest Actress of Her GenerationTM, who used her acceptance of a Golden Globe this week to deliver an eloquent 6-minute takedown of America's soon-to-be President. Needless to say, the Trumposphere was triggered, with some arguing that she had lost all her earned respect. I have to wonder how many of them have ever watched Sophie's Choice anyway. |
| 4 | Eva Mendes |
|
894,263 |  |
So great was the storm of Gosling worship this week that even his wife was swept up in it. |
| 5 | Donald Trump |
|
870,811 |  |
Everyone was waiting for Donald Trump's Twitter response to Meryl Streep's speech, and when it came it was surprisingly restrained, arriving as late as 5 am. He still described her as "a Hillary flunky who lost big" though. |
| 6 | Dangal (film) |
|
857,116 |  |
Down from #1 and over a million views last week. Aamir Khan (pictured) is without question the biggest star in Bollywood, a world where star power counts for a lot. So it's not surprising that his latest film is already breaking records, having made ₹1.07 billion (US$15.78 million) in its first three days. |
| 7 | Joe Biden |
|
788,801 |  |
The current Vice President of the United States began his tenure as a bit of a punchline, but when he lost his eldest son to brain cancer in 2015 his unflappable grace in the face of tragedy earned him national respect. So perhaps it isn't surprising that Barack Obama's surprise award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to his VP in the closing days of his Presidency, which could have been seen as indulging in political nepotism, appears to have been greeted with universal approval. |
| 8 | Emma Stone |
|
749,814 | |
The well-liked actress earned a Golden Globe for her performance in La La Land, placing her at pole position in the Oscar race. |
| 9 | Barack Obama |
|
735,915 |  |
The man who, for the next 5 days as of this list date, remains the President of the United States, used his final days to award his VP Joe Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom (see above). |
| 10 | Elizabeth II |
|
724,759 |  |
For the 12th consecutive week, the longest-reigning British monarch in history places on this list thanks to The Crown, the Golden Globe-winning $100 million melodrama about her early years in which she is played by Claire Foy, who this week also won a Golden Globe for her portrayal. |
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Twenty-eight featured articles were promoted.
Seven featured lists were promoted.
Two featured topics were promoted.
Four featured pictures were promoted.
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Women's March, Washington D.C.
On January 21, 2017, millions of people worldwide marched and rallied in support of issues including women's rights, abortion, LGBTQ rights, and racial justice as part of the Women's March. Across nearly 700 gatherings—at least one on every continent—people came together peacefully to rally around a cause they felt strongly about. Here on Wikipedia, I witnessed and contributed to a similar process, as nearly 700 new and experienced editors contributed to the English Wikipedia articles about the events, building them up city by city into a great overview (2017 Women's March) and list (List of 2017 Women's March locations). The articles were read by 700,000 people over the week centered on the march and received praise for their comprehensiveness on social media. We're often more interested in reading about the Wikipedia articles that are filled with drama, where editors argue and edit war until blocks and sanctions start getting handed out or the article has to be locked down, but it's worth highlighting the hard work and civil editing that goes into articles like these.
Prior to the day of the event, the article - then titled Women's March on Washington and written primarily by Vikkibaumler, Bjhillis, and GandyDancer - covered the planned event in Washington, its motivations, and expected participation, with only a handful of sentences hinting at the scale of events yet to occur. Over the course of the first day, as the marches took place and media coverage of them grew, users added sections covering the biggest marches, and while the article noted that over 400 marches had occurred, just a few dozen had been written about by the end of the day.
Over the following days, users new and experienced added a huge number of documented marches to the article, with experienced users searching out the largest and most well attended to include, alongside unregistered users and new accounts enthusiastically adding the marches they had personally attended to the list (with a surprisingly high number of citations!) Unregistered users contributed information on their marches from Germany, Iceland, New Zealand, The Netherlands, Norway, the USA, and many other countries. Outside of Wikipedia, calls were made (such as on Reddit and Twitter) to add images and (reliably sourced) marches to the article. By mid-morning the article contained more than 100 sections and the decision was made to convert the information into a table, a process which took over two hours (thanks to CaroleHenson!). The article listed more than 300 references by the end of the January 22, and more than 600 by the end of the January 23, with the table split out into its own list article shortly thereafter.
scrolling down the women's march wikipedia entry for the crowd numbers in every city in america is soul-warming - @Thefurlinator
@thefurlinator i can't tell if i'm more inspired by the giant hundred-thousand-plus attendance marches or the tiny ones with <10 people - @Morsecough
By January 26, the Wikimedia Commons category for images of the march contained subcategories for more than 59 cities worldwide, along with a category devoted entirely to pussyhats.
Wikipedia has the only real effort at a tally of participation for the nationwide #WomensMarch - @Janeinak
Vandalism remained surprisingly low, with only minor incidents (including the article briefly being titled the Sore Loser March), and minimal need for blocks to be handed out. Page protection was requested but editors agreed that the beneficial contributions of IP editors far outweighed the handful of negative ones, which were easy to revert; 16% of the article edits were ultimately made by editors not logged into a Wikipedia account. No substantial edit wars took place and no major disagreements occurred on the talk page, beyond some back-and-forth about splitting the article.
While this wasn't the only civil, collaborative, and productive article expansion that's ever occurred on Wikipedia, it is a great example of new and old users coming together over a topic they feel passionate about and writing a useful and comprehensive article with minimal drama, something that I think should be highlighted by the community more often. Consider this one big barnstar to everyone involved.
Wikipedians around the world celebrated the site's 16th birthday on 15 January 2017.
For Wikipedia Day New York City, Wikimedia NYC invited Noam Cohen, a journalist well known for covering the Wikipedia beat for The New York Times, to moderate a talk between Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Katherine Maher and Columbia Law School professor and author Tim Wu. Crashing the panel was Vermin Supreme, a perennial candidate for President of the United States; Supreme provided an intriguing counterpoint to the scheduled discussion, as well as wiki-style editing of the agenda and everyone's expectations.
Here are some excerpts from the discussion:
Noam Cohen moderates a talk between Katherine Maher and Tim Wu
(Category:Wikipedia Day 2017 NYC videos)
Noam Cohen:
Today marks the 16th birthday of Wikipedia, the lone holdout in the world of big-time Internet projects. Think for a moment about what an oddity Wikipedia is. It does not track its users as is the norm among Internet sites and thus it does not compile a dossier to sell to marketers or to use to create targeted advertisements. Again, nearly unique among information sites, Wikipedia does not have ads to appear next to its articles. Also Wikipedia is not dependent on algorithms in part because it does not have a profit motive to keep its users glued to the site.
…It's interesting to look back to Wikipedia's early years when Google's algorithm promoted Wikipedia content despite its many inaccuracies. Wikipedia was treated by Google as the gold-standard encyclopedia because it was the only one really online trying. Encyclopædia Britannica's online content was not free to circulate. Google sent users to Wikipedia which helped Wikipedia get more volunteers, which led to more articles, which led to more volunteers, and so on and so on.
…Wikipedia did not solve the problem of inaccuracy overnight but it committed to finding a solution as a community without the distraction of profits. This again separates Wikipedia from the the other large projects like Google and Facebook who need to find a scalable, algorithmic solution to inaccurate articles.
I just finished writing a book called The Know it Alls which is about tech leaders and their abundant confidence in themselves and their algorithms. They have wreaked so much disruption on our society in the last decade or so—men with names like Marc Andreessen, Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, and Mark Zuckerberg. Their contempt for civic institutions like labor unions, local and federal governments, local businesses, newspapers, universities, as well as for concepts like mutual respect, reasoned discourse, agreed-upon truth has devastated our society in my opinion and brought us to our current precarious situation days before Donald J. Trump.
Wikipedia represents an opposite trend. It is a new civic institution which bolsters community values, promotes collaboration, and works off a shared belief in truth. Our panelists today are going to use Wikipedia as a leaping off point to explore what has become a pressing issue for our democracy. Are we living in a post-truth age? Should we be cool with that? And if not, how can Wikipedia point us in a better direction?
Tim Wu:
I have been thinking about what happened between 2003 and 2017. Right now, we live in a time when the Web—which was once the utopia, the hope for so many people for how human communications could be—has now somehow turned into the dystopia, its opposite. If you wander around randomly on the web it is a vast wasteland of empty listicles, celebrity non-stories, random shit designed to get your attention for a microsecond, and videos that load for no reason that you want. With exceptions—Wikipedia being one of them, some well thought-out blogs being others, also a few of the old hobbyist sites still around - I think that we who believed that the Web would be something better have failed and need to look at ourselves carefully and ask what the hell happened.
…Google was a fairly idealistic place in the early 2000s and mid 2000s. "Don't be evil" was their motto. They certainly had a taste for money but in their hearts they were do-gooders. They made this massive decision to go the path of advertising-based revenue—to become an attention merchant—thinking that, "We can do this, we'll accept advertising, but it won't corrupt us because we're different! We're better! We're smarter!" All of them did! Google was the leader and then everyone followed, saying "We figured it all out! Everything is going to be free and nobody even watches the ads anyway. Ads don't matter, and they're not going to corrupt us." Now I would have trouble naming a major online platform which has gotten any better within the last couple of years for users as opposed to advertisers. These chickens have certainly come home to roost and I think fake news is the strongest example. They set up a model and got trapped in the click world. Your worth on the web is how many clicks you get. It makes TV ratings look honorable by comparison. A whole world where it is all click driven really lowers our society.
Katherine Maher:
The issue of fake news was on a lot of people's minds and I got invited to an event at Arizona University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism… I was sitting in this room with major publishers and the session was on transparency and the whole conversation was around, "How do we as major publications be more transparent so that people trust us more?" One of the publishers was saying that one of the first things they did in response to fake news once they realized what an issue it was, was publish a blog to explain the way that the newsroom sausage gets made. I think my response to that was, "If you need to explain it then you are not being truly transparent." You are speaking to a bunch of people who are already interested in the way that the Fourth Estate works, you are speaking to insiders and folks like me who end up reading the ombudspeopleatThe New York Times and Washington Post. Instead and if there is a lesson to learn from what Wikipedia has done—it was a weird moment—I said, "Look, I'm not a publisher but I am here representing the Wikimedia Foundation which supports Wikipedia. I have to tell you guys this is a really bad situation when I am sitting in the same room as The New York Times and you are not trusted and we are. Fifteen years ago no one would have predicted that we were going to be sitting across a boardroom table from each other and Wikipedia is giving advice on how to build public trust. Yet that is exactly what we have been dedicated to doing, for the past fifteen years particularly."
Wikimedians: the thing that I find so phenomenal about this culture and this community is that you are constantly asking who you are in competition with and the answer is always "yourselves to be better." It is always an aspiration toward the truth. It is always an aspiration towards evolving the projects to be the best that they can be. So we're sitting here and having this conversation and the thing that I kept coming away with is that Wikipedia does a couple things really well. There are the three core policies of Wikipedia: verifiability, no original research, reliable sources. … I think the thing that we do not focus enough on is the role of transparency at every level: policies, structural product, and the accountability that this creates to readers and to ourselves. That is the thing that I see missing from a lot of the conversations we're having about fake news, not just with the media institutions themselves, although I think they aspire to it imperfectly, but certainly with the platforms that have become the intermediaries for how we see the world.
Vermin Supreme and Rob Potylo providing counterpoints to the post-truth panel
Following the 2016 United States presidential election, perennial candidate Vermin Supreme might be described as the most reasonable, traditional, and conventionally electable politician who campaigned. Amazingly in such a heated and hostile election, Supreme progressed through the entire debate season with no criticism from any political party, except versions of his own party from various timelines in parallel universes. On Wikipedia Day 2016, without prior announcement, Supreme took the stage and called for the United States government to transition to a more moderate political system: fascism under his tyrannical rule as president. It was just as well that he came, as Supreme was probably the least controversial candidate with the most transparent political platform. His political positions included advocating for America's scientists to direct their attention to time travel research and spacetime repair, the American health care system to focus on issuing everyone more and much larger toothbrushes to counter the community burden of gingivitis, and for the American military to invest all resources to prepare for the imminent zombie apocalypse. With the presidential inauguration just days later, Supreme's presence was all the more relevant, as he among all presidential candidates had the most opinions and policy statements which were specifically about Wikipedia. As the assembled audience came to realize the weight of the personality speaking to them, Supreme called for free ponies for everyone as part of a plan for the United States to shift toward a pony-based economy.
Supreme, along with campaign manager Rob Potylo, led a Wikipedia sing-along with compulsory participation. Supreme went on to say, "Gingivitis has been eroding the gumline of our great nation for long enough and must be stopped." Potylo cut to the point and asked, "Does anyone know where the buffet table is?" Katherine called for applause for these guests in the wiki spirit of inclusivity. Even "post-truth" and "alternative facts" are welcome in Wikipedia when wiki editors use citations to neutral third-party reliable sources to clearly label such content as a group's own trip, propaganda, advertising, fringe theory, false memory, mental disorder, or lie. This goes for all marketers, political parties, or anyone else feeling a wiki wish to edit their own reality.
In partnership with Vermin Supreme the Wikimedia community is providing ponies for everyone at Commons:Category:Ponies. Anyone who still has not uploaded their photos of Wikipedia Day 2017 events should do so at Commons:Category:Wikipedia 16 by country.
If articles have been updated, you may need to refresh the single-page edition.