Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-01-03/In the news

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3 January 2011

Fundraising success media coverage; brief news

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Multiple news sources relay Wikipedia's fundraising success

After it was announced that the 2010–11 fundraiser had concluded with more than $16 million raised (see this week's "News and notes"), up from $7.5 million in 2009, the news was promptly spread on New Year's day by mainstream news sources, including CNET News and The Atlantic, where Nicholas Jackson blogged "I had grown so used to seeing his face over the past couple of months during the site's annual drive that I was shocked he had disappeared". ReadWriteWeb observed: "A look at the real-time statistics shows that while the average donation remained around the same as years past, the number of people donating was far greater." An ArsTechnica article was titled "For a good cause: Half a million people fund Wikipedia" and a blog posting on MSNBC "Jimmy Wales' creepy stare rockets $16 million in Wikipedia donations". An Examiner.com article (URL blacklisted) summed up the fundraiser's success: "The sheer number of donations seems to show that people are starting to 'get it,' that Wikipedia is an endless sources [sic] of (mostly correct) information."

Briefly

• Canadian Wikipedia use: An article on Internet usage in Canada by The Canadian Press stated that『the average Canadian web surfer reads 16 Wikipedia pages a month, which is the most in the world — one more than German users, two more than Polish users and four more than Americans』(numbers which agree with the Wikimedia Foundation's "Wikipedia page views per country" overview, although the Foundation page lists other countries with a higher monthly page view average, most of which are small nations that may be statistical outliers, but also Finland with 17 monthly views per Internet user). The article remarked that "Canadian users generate about 217,000 edits a month, which ranks eighth among the most productive countries."

  

  
  
• Wikipedia "canonical and durable": In a posting on his blog at Harvard University's Berkman Center, US technology writer Doc Searls talked about his geography-related photographs that he had been uploading to Flickr under a CC-BY license, noting that nearly 200 of them had been copied to Wikimedia Commons ("Big thanks to the Wikipedians who have put them there"). On the occasion, Searls recommended fellow Berkman fellow Joseph Reagle's recent book about Wikipedia, Good Faith Collaboration (Signpost review), and explained why he was linking to Wikipedia frequently: "One reason is that Wikipedia is the closest we have come, so far, to a source that is both canonical and durable, even if each entry changes constantly, and some are subject to extreme disagreement. Wikipedia is, like the protocols of the Net, a set of agreements. Another reason is that Wikipedia is guided by the ideal of a neutral point of view (NPOV)."
• Good Faith Collaboration review: The Californian alternative weekly newspaper North Coast Journal also reviewed Reagle's book last week, concluding that it is "short on drama and personality, and so it’s probably destined to be a source document if a publisher is ever convinced that Wikipedia is sexy enough to merit a more narrative-driven treatment. Since that seems unlikely, this may remain the best opportunity for learning about this remarkable project."

In this issue

3 January 2011 (all comments)

2010 in review

News and notes

Can someone explain the discrepancy between the actual amount of money raised, and the "live statistics" given? Cheers, 92.156.20.181 (talk) 19:15, 3 January 2011 (UTC).[reply]

To quote the blog post mentioned, "the $13.5 million accounted for online only includes online donations, and the rest of the more than $16 million comes from checks and individual chapters." Guoguo12--Talk--  21:12, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The blog post mentioned is wrong, by the way. It's actually my article that the quote is from: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/wikipedia_raises_16_million_to_remain_ad-free.php — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rwwmike (talk • contribs) 00:20, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

...which was in fact cited in the News and notes article about the fundraiser. (Sorry btw for this slight overlap between "News and notes" and "In the news" regarding this particular topic.) Regards, HaeB (talk) 00:36, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about the source issue, guys (I'm the author). Should I fix it? Guoguo12--Talk--  20:25, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, this should indeed not remain uncorrected (above I had assumed that Rwwmike was only referring to your comment on this talk page). I just fixed it.

The wrong attribution actually happened in this copyedit by Tony1 where two quotes from different sources were merged, but the main problem was that the source was missing for the second quote. Also, a link to the CNET article should have been given.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 00:27, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What is with Doc's arm? ResMar 05:28, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Doc Searle's arm is partly obscured by the camera's neck strap (which has motion blur.) --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 15:13, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

HaeB, thanks for fixing the citation issue. Guoguo12--Talk--  21:36, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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