Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2009-03-30

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30 March 2009

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License update
Community weighs license update

News and notes
End of Encarta, flagged revisions poll, new image donation, and more

In the news
Censorship, social media in schools, and more

Discussion report
Discussion Reports And Miscellaneous Articulations

Features and admins
Approved this week

Technology report
Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

Arbitration report
The Report on Lengthy Litigation

2009-03-30

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By Sage Ross

Click to subscribe to the Signpost RSS Feed

This week I'm pleased to announce two new ways of keeping up with the Signpost and breaking Wikipedia news. Thanks to Ral315, the Signpost has a WordPress blog to provide a convenient RSS feed that will post the contents of the new issue each week: wikipediasignpost.com/blog. Thanks to Steven Walling, you can also follow the Signpost through Twitter. The wikisignpost Twitter feed will announce new Signpost issues and also link to significant Wikipedia-related news and commentary throughout the week.

As always, the Signpost relies on the efforts of volunteer contributors. In addition to the review desk announced last week, the weekly "In the news" feature could use more help.

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2009-03-30

Community weighs license update

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By Phoebe and Sage Ross

History

This shift in licensing was not possible before the introduction of the GFDL version 1.3 in autumn 2008 by the Free Software Foundation. This new GFDL release provides a specific clause for any "Massive Multiauthor Collaboration Site", specifically any public wiki, that is currently licensed under the GFDL to relicense their content under the CC-BY-SA license if they desire, provided that the content was added to the wiki before November 1, 2008.^[1] This clause has an expiration date; sites can only choose to switch until August 2009. The FAQ for the new license notes specifically that Wikipedia is eligible.^[2]

Wikipedia chose the GFDL license in 2001, before Creative Commons released their first licenses in late 2002.^[3] Subsequently, there has been much discussion over whether the GFDL is the best free content license for Wikipedia to use, and whether the site should switch. In the past few years, CC licenses have become the most widely used free content licenses. The new clause in the GFDL came about after extensive discussion between the Wikimedia Foundation, Creative Commons, and the Free Software Foundation.

License differences

The two licenses, though they are generally similar in intent, do have a number of differences. Perhaps the most striking difference is in how information about the license itself must be included when distributing a work. The GFDL—originally designed for software documentation—requires inclusion of a complete copy of the license whenever content is distributed. This requirement has been a cause for complaint in recent years among Wikipedians and others who wish to reuse and reprint Wikipedia articles and other content, although some users take advantage of that requirement by licensing photographs solely under the GFDL (effectively preventing use without permission by traditional print media while still enabling online uses). For the CC family of licenses, it suffices to "make clear to others the license terms of [the] work".

Another difference between the two licenses is how authors must be attributed; the GFDL requires a section entitled "history" and attribution to the authors of a work, while CC-BY-SA, although by default it requires that authors can be credited, allows the copyright holder to specify the manner in which a work must be attributed.

Debate

The Wikimedia community debate on the subject, which has been held primarily on the mailing list Foundation-L,^[4] has mainly centered over the attribution clause. The CC-BY-SA 3.0 license requires re-users of content to provide attribution in a manner "reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing" but also spells out the types of attribution information that may be required—including "the name of the Original Author (or pseudonym, if applicable) if supplied". The debate has centered on whether providing a link to wiki content (where individual authors can be found through the history function) is an appropriate method of attribution, as opposed to publishing a list of all article authors whenever an article is reused. Some mailing list discussants would rather that any re-use of content (whether online or offline) include a list of all contributors, an attribution model that others fear would introduce unnecessary obstacles to re-use.

Influenced by this discussion and the results of the small-scale survey that was published, proposed attribution language has been drawn up by the Foundation. Consistent with the way GFDL attribution requirements have been handled for Wikimedia projects, projects' terms of use would be updated. According to the licensing update page,^[5] if implemented, the new specified attribution terms would allow re-used content (such as a reprinted article) to be attributed simply by including a hyperlink to the original article, a link to a compatible copy of the article on a non-Wikimedia site, or a list of all the article authors.

Timetable, vote, and licensing committee

According to the license update timeline, in the next few days the update committee will finalize the translations of the update proposal and the voting interface, and prepare the voting software and authentication software. The community-wide vote on whether to switch licenses will then take place from 2 April to 23 April. All users with at least 25 edits to any project prior to March 15, 2009 will be eligible to vote. The results of the vote will not be the final word on the license update, but if the switch receives less than 50% support, "further Board-level and community consultation will follow" before a final decision is made. If the vote gathers more than 50% support, the matter will be referred to the Board of Trustees for the final decision. The Board has stated ^[6] that they support the proposal.

Notes

^ Text of the FDL 1.3.
^ FDL 1.3 FAQ
^ History of Creative Commons.
^ See the List summary service for links to the discussions over the past several months
^ Proposed terms of use under the license update page
^ Board position statement, Foundation-l mailing list.

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2009-03-30

End of Encarta, flagged revisions poll, new image donation, and more

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By Phoebe and Sage Ross

Encarta encyclopedia to be discontinued

Microsoft Encarta, the second most popular English-language Internet encyclopedia, is being discontinued and taken offline on 31 October 2009. According to the updated FAQ, "the category of traditional encyclopedias and reference material has changed. People today seek and consume information in considerably different ways than in years past." Although it never had as high a reputation as Encyclopædia Britannica for its articles, Encarta rose to prominence in the 1990s on the strength of its multimedia content, including tens of thousands of illustrations and hundreds of videos. However, in recent years Wikipedia has left Encarta a distant second among online encyclopedias; according to a recent Hitwise analysis, Wikipedia attracts 96.7% of encyclopedia web traffic, compared with 1.3% for Encarta.

New tech hire

On March 23, Brion Vibber announced that Frédéric Vassard had been hired for the Wikimedia Foundation technical staff. Vassard will be working with "operations, monitoring, and documentation of our servers."

Flagged revisions polls nears end

New donation of 250,000 images

Mathias Schindler reports the imminent "release of some 250,000 images from the Deutsche Fotothek under Creative Commons cc-by-sa 3.0 and its subsequent uploading to Wikimedia Commons." A joint press conference with Wikimedia Germany is expected soon. This follows Wikimedia Germany's late 2008 success in securing almost 100,000 images from the Bundesarchiv.

FAC rolls out uniform subpage system

As of April 1, a new system will be used to create nomination pages for featured article candidates. Under the new system, modeled after articles for deletion, all nominations will be automatically created in standard subpages with the following form:

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Article/archive1
Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Article/archive2
etc.

This will avoid problems associated with the old system of moving pages and updating links. Further information is available here.

Briefly

In-person and remote usability tests occurred on March 25 and March 26; Naoko Kumura of the Wikimedia usability team stated that results would be released within a few weeks.
The Military history Wikiproject election for project coordinators ended on March 28.
After the first IRC bid meeting was held on March 29, Wikimania 2010 bids are open for comment and questions (on the bid talk pages) until April 12.

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2009-03-30

Censorship, social media in schools, and more

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By Sage Ross

Wikinews reports on Australian blocks of parts of Wikileaks and Wikipedia

Earlier this month, Wikipedia was drawn into a dispute over Australian Internet censorship. In an experiment to test the nature and extent of enforcement of the website blacklist maintained by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), activists added a link to a censored site to the ACMA's Wikipedia article, among other legitimate sites. Wikinews covered this in more detail in a March 20 story, "Portions of Wikileaks, Wikipedia blocked in Australia". Wikileaks published an editorial on March 29, "Western internet censorship: The beginning of the end or the end of the beginning?", in response to reactions to the publication of blacklists.

Wikipedia and Twitter for England's classrooms?

In England, "Pupils to study Twitter and blogs in primary schools shake-up", The Guardian reports. Draft plans for a revision of primary school curriculum would lessen the requirements for history education and give teacher more flexibility in deciding what to emphasize. The plans also call for children to learn about "blogging, podcasts, Wikipedia and Twitter as sources of information and forms of communication".

Wikipedia Revolution spreads

Andrew Lih's The Wikipedia Revolution (ISBN 1401303714) is drawing a considerable amount of media attention. It has been reviewed in several high-profile venues, and this week Lih was interviewed for an article at Salon.com, "Are we dangerously dependent on Wikipedia?".

The book is also the starting point for a "Week in Review" essay in the New York Times by journalist Noam Cohen, "Wikipedia: Exploring Fact City". Cohen explores the metaphor, discussed in Lih's book, of Wikipedia as a city, where well-trafficked areas are relatively safe and there are always surprises and new developments for visitors to find. Technology writer and social critic Nicholas Carr responded to Cohen's essay with a blog post called "Potemkinpedia". Carr argues that Cohen is too optimistic, and that "Wikipedia has, to play with Cohen's metaphor, erected a lot of police barricades, cordoning off large areas of the site and requiring would-be editors to show their government-issued ID cards before passing through."

Briefly

The Signpost previously noted the results of a Wikipedia assignment run by University of Florida ecology professor Emilio Bruna: the professor and the students published an article in scientific journal analyzing the assignment and arguing for Wikipedia editing as a professional responsibility. Bruna and one of his students were interviewed for EcoTone: The Ecology Society of America Blog.
Silicon Valley gossip site Vallywag asks, "Is the Los Angeles Times Cribbing from Wikipedia?" An article on Japanese bullet trains bears suspicious resemblance to Wikipedia content.
In Learning & Leading with Technology, a newsletter of the International Society for Technology in Education, Thomas Hammond and David Farhie offer point/counterpoint on the issue "Wikipedia: Friend or Foe".
Wikipedia is the focus of e-Learning Stuff Podcast #19, with British educators James Clay, Lisa Valentine, and Nick Jeans: "W.. W.. W.. W.. Wikipedia". The comparatively small Scots Wikipedia is discussed in some detail.
Wired reviews Wikirank, a tool for comparing the traffic of Wikipedia articles, which is now open to the public.
The National covers the potential use of flagged revisions in "The ‘we’ in Wiki?", although the description of how flagged revisions would work is at odds with the current proposal under discussion, Flagged protection and patrolled revisions.

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2009-03-30

Discussion Reports And Miscellaneous Articulations

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By Hermione1980

The following is a brief overview of new discussions taking place on the English Wikipedia. For older, yet possibly active, discussions please see our previous edition.

Centralized discussions

Proposed move of Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion

Happy-melon moved Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion to Wikipedia:Criteria for summary deletion on March 27, citing a previous discussion that had a rough consensus to rename the speedy deletion process. Some users objected to the bold renaming and suggested that further discussion should take place, and Ryan Postlethwaite moved the page back to its original title later that day. The discussion is mostly concerned with whether "speedy" has connotations of "quickly" or "instantly" deleting an article with no application of common sense, and if "summary" brings up summary justice. Fabrictramp noted that the word summary "brings up an image of a posse in the old west, hanging a suspect without any evidence of guilt." Other words to be used in place of "speedy" are currently being discussed.

Proposed creation of Wikipedia:Mergers for discussion

It has been proposed that a separate process should be created to discuss article mergers, at Wikipedia:Mergers for discussion. At Articles for deletion, discussions about whether to merge article content are generally pointed at the article's talk page, where it can take months (and, in extreme cases, years) to effect a merge. According to NickPenguin, the process' main proponent, "MRfD is a process that is concerned primarily with content, not subjects, and it seeks to preserve valuable content in a way that improves the quality and depth of Wikipedia." MRfD aims to centralize merge discussions so that they can receive wider community input. Opponents have noted that Wikipedia:Proposed merges already exists and is underutilized, and that an additional process may not yield better results.

Date formatting and linking poll

A poll was started on March 30 regarding linking dates and the use of autoformatting for logged-in users. A poll in August 2008 led to the deprecation of date linking, but several editors later expressed concerns that it did not reflect wider community consensus. The current poll has several options, including whether to use autoformatting, whether months/days/years should be linked (and if so, if they should only be linked on first occurrence), and if the Manual of Style should provide any guidance on the matter at all. It is scheduled to run for two weeks.

Proposals

Proposal to allow autoconfirmation to be manually granted and revoked

Cenarium has suggested that autoconfirmed status should be able to be granted and revoked manually (by admins). The status would still be conferred automatically at 10 edits and 4 days, but admins would be given the capability to grant it early. This would decrease certain types of vandalism while allowing certain users who need autoconfirmed status early to be given it. This would require making "autoconfirmed" an explicit usergroup in MediaWiki. Most users who have commented are in favor of allowing autoconfirmed status to be removed and reinstated, while maintaining the automatic granting that is currently in place.

Requests for comment

RfC on making Wikipedia:Notability (populated places) a guideline

OrangeDog has proposed making Notability (populated places) a guideline. The proposed guideline, as it stands, would govern the inclusion criteria for small villages and hamlets. According to current practices, articles about small villages and other settlements are allowed, and according to Phil Bridger, most AfDs on such articles are closed with a "keep" result, since they are about populated places. Many users have expressed reservations on the talk page that the proposal would cause many articles on places from small towns in rural England to large cities in Africa to be deleted, due to a lack of secondary sources. Consensus is currently against making this a guideline.

RfC on blocking random usernames

Shawnhath has suggested that user names consisting of random strings of characters should be blocked on sight. The ensuing discussion centered around the question of how random a name must be to be blocked, the potential loss of good contributors, and the probability that a random account is a throwaway vandal account. Opponents to the proposal have stated that there is no way to determine if a username is actually random, or if it means something to the person who registered it. Supporters have said that disallowing random usernames would reduce confusion (resulting from dealing with two users named "klfasdj" and "klfsadj", for example) and vandalism from one-off accounts.

RfC on allowing templates in signatures

Allstarecho asked for confirmation that the policy of disallowing the use of templates in signatures should continue to exist. Transcluding a template in one's signature has been prohibited since February 2005, but substitution has been allowed (if generally discouraged, since substitution has historically been used to circumvent the 255-character limit on signatures in Special:Preferences). The current wording of the guideline was introduced by xeno on February 18, 2009. Most users commenting in the discussion have expressed the opinion that transclusion should still be disallowed due to increased server load and the possibility of vandalism, but there are differing opinions on allowing substitution.

RfC on changing the wording of WP:TERRORIST

An RfC has been started on whether to reword Wikipedia:Words to avoid to state that there are some appropriate usages of the word terrorist. Currently, the guideline strongly discourages the use of the words extremist, terrorist, or freedom fighter as they inherently reflect a particular point of view. Some users have expressed the viewpoint that the aforementioned words can be used as "straightforward descriptive terms" in certain cases, such as if an event has been characterized in the media as a "terrorist attack". Others have stated that there are other ways to word such events that are less inflammatory.

RfC on the appropriateness of criticism articles

Editors are seeking consensus on whether or not "Criticism of..." articles are appropriate forks for article content. Several of these articles exist (for example, Criticism of Microsoft) and some have previously survived attempts to delete them. Another RfC has been opened at Wikipedia talk:Criticism in an attempt to find out if Wikipedia:Criticism should be made a guideline. Little discussion has taken place at the latter RfC, but the former is focusing on how much weight a criticism section or article can be given without violating the guidelines on undue weight.

Sister projects

Refreshing and standardizing Wiktionary's logo

In 2006, a poll was conducted to create a new logo for the Wiktionary projects. While there was a good deal of support for four of the proposals (1, 2, 3, 4), only the first proposal (the "Scrabble tile" logo) has been implemented at all. The English Wiktionary, along with some of the other language projects, has retained the original logo. Several users have expressed reservations about that logo, since it poses significant translation and standardization issues. The "Scrabble tile" logo has been adopted by a number of Wiktionary projects, including French and Italian. Currently, no consensus exists on any of the proposals.

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2009-03-30

Approved this week

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By seresin

Administrators

Five editors were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: Smith609 (nom), LinguistAtLarge (nom), Mentifisto (nom), Someguy1221 (nom) and Al Ameer son (nom).

Bots

Five bots or bot tasks were approved to begin operating this week: AnomieBOT (task request), RockfangBot (task request), SoxBot VII (task request), Sambot (task request) and HersfoldBot (task request).

Featured pages

Fifteen articles were promoted to featured status this week: Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine (nom), Harriet Bosse (nom), Noel Park (nom), Noël Coward (nom), Agrippina (opera) (nom), John Brownlee sex scandal (nom), Nevado del Ruiz (nom), Norman Birkett, 1st Baron Birkett (nom), Frank Hubert McNamara (nom), Hillsboro, Oregon (nom), Edmontosaurus (nom), U.S. Route 50 in Nevada (nom), Phil Hartman (nom), Laurence of Canterbury (nom) and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (nom).

Seven lists were promoted to featured status this week: List of Megadeth band members (nom), Silver Slugger Award (nom), Veronica Mars (season 1) (nom), List of National Monuments of the United States (nom), List of Mexican National Heavyweight Champions (nom), List of Houston Rockets statistics and records (nom) and List of members of the Gregorian mission (nom).

Three topics were promoted to featured status this week: Triple Gold Club (nom), Second Persian invasion of Greece (nom) and U-43 class submarine (Austria-Hungary) (nom).

No portals were promoted to featured status this week.

The following featured articles were displayed on the Main Page this week as Today's featured article: Operation Varsity, Hellingly Hospital Railway, Nathu La, Peter Jones, Germanium, Barthélemy Boganda and Red River Trails.

Former featured pages

Five articles were delisted this week: Black pepper (nom), Yoweri Museveni (nom), Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee (nom), Llywelyn the Great (nom) and Washington gubernatorial election, 2004 (nom).

No lists were delisted this week.

No topics were delisted this week.

Featured media

The following featured pictures were displayed on the Main Page this week as picture of the day: Oswego Harbor West Pierhead Light, Stunt performer, Role preformed en travesti, Cone nebula, American Green Frog, Hotel Coronado and U.S. WWI poster.

No media files were featured this week.

One featured picture was demoted this week: Walt Disney Concert Hall (nom).

Eleven pictures were promoted to featured status this week and are shown below.

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2009-03-30

Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

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By Aude

This is a summary of recent technology and site configuration changes that affect the English Wikipedia. This past week, developers updated the live code on Wikimedia sites to 1.15alpha r48811 (see change log), which means that a number of bug fixes and new features previously mentioned are now live.

Please note that some bug fixes or new features described below have not yet gone live as of press time; the English Wikipedia is currently running version 1.43.0-wmf.4 (2111e6d), and changes to the software with a version number higher than that will not yet be active. Configuration changes and changes to interface messages, however, become active immediately.

Bug fixes

When exporting pages via Special:Export, where pages have an underscore and the "Include templates" option is checked, two copies of the page get exported. This bug has been fixed. (r48938, bug 17374)

New features

Preference-based date auto-formatting of dates is now available for unlinked dates, with the {{#formatdate}} parser function. For example, {{#formatdate:March 30, 2009|ymd}} displays as 2009, March 30 for logged-out users, following the format specified. If you are logged-in and have set date preferences, the date will display according to your preferences. (r48249, bug 4582)
A new system message (talkpageheader) has been added that can be used to display header text when viewing talk pages. (r48930, bug 17163)
The ability to set user rights via the API has been added. (r48970, bug 15935)
The Add Media Wizard extension and Firefogg are now enabled on test.wikipedia.org. ^[1]
The Abuse Filter is now enabled on Wikimedia Commons. (bug 18094)

Other news

The Wikimedia Foundation has hired a new systems administrator, Fred Vassard, who will help with server operations and monitoring. ^[2]
There is a job opening at the Wikimedia Foundation, for a software developer to work on the Wikimedia Usability Initiative. The Foundation is considering both candidates that can work at the San Francisco offices, as well as those who can work remotely. ^[3]
The student application period for the Google Summer of Code program closes on April 3. As well, there is a need for mentors who can answer questions from the students and monitor their progress. Mentors also need to formally apply on the GSOC site. ^{[4] [5] [6]}

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2009-03-30

The Report on Lengthy Litigation

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By seresin

The Committee announced their new mail-handling policy. They also announced a new procedure and committee for reviewing ban appeals.

The Arbitration Committee opened one case this week, and closed none, leaving seven cases open.

Evidence phase

Ryulong: A case regarding Ryulong's use of his administrator tools.
Obama articles: A case opened to review behavior of editors of articles related to Barack Obama.
West Bank - Judea and Samaria: A dispute about editor behavior in discussions about naming conventions for certain Israel- and Palestine-related locations.
MZMcBride: A case brought after administrator MZMcBride deleted numerous "secret pages". This case is reviewing administrator conduct by MZMcBride only, and is not ruling on the appropriateness of the pages themselves. MZMcBride was admonished for his administrator actions in a previous Request for Arbitration.
Prem Rawat 2: A case concerning the continued behavioral problems on the pages about Prem Rawat, and related articles. A previous case, Prem Rawat, was closed in May of last year.
Date delinking: A case regarding the behavior of editors in the ongoing dispute relating to policy on linking dates in articles. An injunction has been issued prohibiting large-scale linking or delinking of dates until the case is resolved.

Voting

Scientology: A case regarding behavioral problems in Scientology-related articles; the case is related to the prior case Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/COFS.

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Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2009-03-30

Follow the Signpost with RSS and Twitter

Community weighs license update

History

License differences

Debate

Timetable, vote, and licensing committee

See also

Notes

End of Encarta, flagged revisions poll, new image donation, and more

Encarta encyclopedia to be discontinued

New tech hire

Flagged revisions polls nears end

New donation of 250,000 images

FAC rolls out uniform subpage system

Briefly

Censorship, social media in schools, and more

Wikinews reports on Australian blocks of parts of Wikileaks and Wikipedia

Wikipedia and Twitter for England's classrooms?

Wikipedia Revolution spreads

Briefly

Discussion Reports And Miscellaneous Articulations

Centralized discussions

Proposals

Requests for comment

Sister projects

Approved this week

Administrators

Bots

Featured pages

Former featured pages

Featured media

Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

Bug fixes

New features

Other news

The Report on Lengthy Litigation

Evidence phase

Voting