Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2016-03-23
Exclusive: interview with interim ED Katherine Maher
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Katherine Maher says WMF at "interesting moment of change"
A few complaints and mild disagreements
30 September 2022
Wikimedia LLC and disinformation in Japan
28 March 2021
Google isn't responsible for Wikipedia's mistakes
28 March 2021
Maher stepping down
28 February 2021
Wikipedia celebrates 20 years of free, trusted information for the world
31 January 2021
After the Wikimedia Foundation’s roller-coaster ride of the past few months, the appointment of chief communications officer Katherine Maher to lead the organisation as interim executive director has been greeted with relief by Wikimedians and WMF staff.
Maher brings to her new role a significant track record of international experience in technology-oriented management, community engagement, and governance. Getting people to trust each other and work together appears to be a hallmark of her style.
Her experience began with programmatic work and the modelling of market and governance stability in the Middle East. She went on to manage HSBC’s international development program from the UK, moving to financial and market analysis in the company’s Düsseldorf and Toronto offices.
Since then, Maher's career has mostly been in the NGO sector—first for a specific project in establishing an open-source citizen reporting site for Lebanon; then in the management, project design, and advocacy of ICT-supported endeavours for UNICEF; the non-partisan US National Democratic Institute; and the World Bank. In the 16 months before she was chief communications officer at the WMF, she was the advocacy director for Access Now, leading their global advocacy on human rights and technology policy.
The Signpost interviewed Maher last week by Skype audio on a range of issues—from the impending recruitment of key WMF managers to more existential challenges that face the Wikimedia movement.
Katherine Maher marks 3 years as executive director
30 April 2019
Clarifications on status and compensation of outgoing executive directors Sue Gardner and Lila Tretikov
15 June 2016
Exclusive: interview with interim ED Katherine Maher
23 March 2016
Katherine Maher named interim head of WMF; Wales email re-sparks Heilman controversy; draft WMF strategy posted
9 March 2016
Tretikov resigns, WMF in transition
2 March 2016
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[UPDATED] WMF in limbo as decision on Tretikov nears |
A transcript of the interview by Graham Pearce is available.
During the interview, a number of terms and abbreviations are used:
- The chief technology officer (CTO) is a critical executive-level role focused on the WMF's engineering side. The job description for this key position, as yet unfilled, is here.
- Product is short for the research and development of new software and functionality, as distinct from the WMF's engineering team. Wes Moran is the vice president of product.
- Human resources (HR) is the management of an organisation's workforce. In the WMF, this is known as "talent and culture".
- The Strategic priorities document for the short- to medium-term planning of the WMF is currently maturing at Meta.
- MediaWiki is a free and open-source wiki application. It was originally developed by the Foundation and is the basis of many of its websites, including the Wikipedias. MediaWiki is written in the PHP programming language and uses a backend database.
- Wikidata is a collaboratively edited document-oriented database knowledge base, focused around items. Operated by the WMF, it is intended to provide a common source of data that can be used by Wikimedia projects and by anyone else, under a public-domain licence. It was launched in October 2012 under the supervision of Wikimedia Germany.
- A platform in the simplest terms is the stage on which computer programs can run. Examples are embedded systems that can access hardware directly without an operating system, a web-based browser like Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, the Google platform, and the WMF's Wikidata project. By contrast, Wikipedia is a destination—a repository of information.
- Editor's note: post-production audio advice by Bill Dengler and Graham Pearce.
Lila Tretikov a Young Global Leader; Wikipediocracy blog post sparks indefinite blocks
Lila Tretikov receives Young Global Leader invitation from World Economic Forum
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The World Economic Forum – best known for its annual meeting of some of the world's top political and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland – has invited outgoing Wikimedia Foundation executive director Lila Tretikov to become one of its Young Global Leaders.
The Young Global Leaders programme was set up in 2004 with the US$1 million of prize money received by World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab from the Dan David Foundation. Described in Businessweek as "the most exclusive private social network in the world", the hundreds of Young Global Leaders have included actor Leonardo DiCaprio, Anderson Cooper, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Contacts between the World Economic Forum and the Wikimedia Foundation date back many years. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales was named a Young Global Leader in 2007 (as was his wife since 2012, Kate Garvey, whom he reportedly met in Davos). In 2008, the World Economic Forum named the Wikimedia Foundation a "technology pioneer", enabling it to send a representative to the Davos meeting (Florence Devouard attended in 2008, Sue Gardner in 2009).
Wales participated in various capacities in Davos over the years, including co-chairmanship of a Middle East forum in 2008, and in 2015 was a winner of the $1 million Dan David Prize. Today, he serves on the Young Global Leaders Foundation board, while WMF board member Guy Kawasaki is an "agenda contributor" at the World Economic Forum. Both Wales and Kawasaki are believed to have been among Tretikov's chief defenders in the recent leadership crisis at the Foundation.
Tretikov's nomination for the Young Global Leaders list would have occurred sometime before June 2015, given the World Economic Forum's nomination deadline for the class of 2016. Selection criteria include age (below 40 at the time of nomination) as well as "a recognized record of extraordinary achievement and a proven track record of substantial leadership experience. Typically, this means 5–15 years of outstanding professional work experience and a clear indication of playing a substantial leadership role for the rest of his or her career." The World Economic Forum list of the Young Global Leaders class of 2016, published March 16, still describes Lila Tretikov as "the Moscow-born head of the Wikimedia Foundation, the world's largest source of free knowledge".
Wikipediocracy blog post leads to indefinite user blocks on multiple Wikimedia projects
A recent blog post (removed, here is the updated version) on Wikipedia criticism site Wikipediocracy has sparked indefinite blocks of a volunteer contributor on multiple Wikimedia projects. The blog post drew attention to the fact that WayneRay, indefinitely blocked from participation in the English Wikipedia by the project's Arbitration Committee in 2012, was still a highly active contributor on Wikimedia Commons, with a history of problematic user interactions.
WayneRay provided unusually complete details of his identity on-wiki, creating and defending his own Wikipedia biography (archive), and maintaining a page with biographical information about himself on Commons (archive) that he linked on his Commons user page. A minor poet, publisher, and cultural figure in London, Ontario, he had garnered local media attention after being charged with child pornography offences and receiving a 23-month jail sentence in 2011. He was reported to have both shared and solicited child pornography online, at one point posing as a 14-year-old girl to obtain more photos.
Since publication of the Wikipediocracy blog post, volunteer administrators on Commons as well as English Wikinews, Wikisource, and Wikiquote have indefinitely blocked WayneRay. The Wikimedia Foundation's Manager of Trust & Safety, James Alexander, told the Signpost that his department is aware of the situation, and that he has been in touch with volunteer administrators on Commons.
An obvious question arising here is why an openly self-identifying user with a documented child pornography conviction was permitted to edit other Wikimedia projects, given his 2012 ArbCom block on the English Wikipedia and problematic user interactions in his edit history. It would make sense for ArbCom to forward information about problematic users to the Wikimedia Foundation, and for the Foundation then to review the relevant accounts' global contributions histories, performing WMF Office bans where appropriate. We put this question to James Alexander, who pointed out the difficulty of doing the job with limited resources:
We took over the child protection cases from ArbCom a little over a year ago or so (though parts of that transition started before that and parts lasted after). We did that at the same time as we were starting to look at the larger issue of Trust & Safety and problematic cases which the community was either overstretched, or unable to deal with for one reason or another (not through fault of their own but because of the legal and privacy complications etc.), similar to what we did when we set up the emergency@ system for threats of harm. Knowing that our bandwidth was already stretched to the maximum, one of the things we did at the time was to hire someone with Trust & Safety experience (Kalliope) to help, but unfortunately we still have significant resource constraints on what we can commit to and we still only have 2 people primarily focused on it (myself and Kalli), with the other 5 members of Support & Safety (previously Community Advocacy) committed to helping with investigations when possible.
Of course, as happens when you open up badly needed channels like that, the previously unmet demand grew enormously once people realized we were available to help. The number of global ban requests or other issues to evaluate has subsequently grown as part of this, requiring us to prioritize it somewhat brutally at times. Child protection, of course, is incredibly high on that prioritization. Other than emergency threats of harm or other highly time sensitive crises, it goes to the top of the list as soon as we get a report. However, the resource issue has prevented us from making any more methodical 'proactive' steps to look into potential cases that have not yet been brought to our attention, although this is undoubtedly something we'd love to be able to do.
In the end, as in most things, the community is still usually the first line of defense. We want to help as much as possible and to continue to increase that help as we gain more bandwidth through new resources and efficiencies. They are often best situated, however, to see when something needs to be looked at, to escalate matters when needed to our attention, and sometimes the best overall first responders (such as for most content related issues).
Ray's Wikipedia biography, which for several years contained a reference to the child pornography conviction – at times edit-warred over, then removed by Herostratus in August 2014 – has been nominated for deletion (the article had previously survived a 2006 deletion request). At the time of this writing, there is a clear consensus for deletion.
Brief notes
- Event ban policy created: The Foundation has created an event ban policy, described as "a set of guidelines and procedures regarding identifying and handling users who are banned from Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) sponsored or funded events, in the interest of maintaining the physical and mental well-being of the participants. This policy, and the suggested processes pursuant to this policy, are applicable to in-person events, taking place in physical spaces." Chapters, projects, user groups and affiliates are encouraged to adopt and adapt this policy when holding in-person events.
- WMF Office desysop: In a rare move, the Foundation temporarily desysopped Commons administrator Denniss for restoring a comment made by a globally banned editor and taking punitive action against another contributor who had repeatedly removed the comment. Denniss may seek admin rights again through a Request for Adminship after thirty days. In a statement posted on the Commons Village Pump, James Alexander said "we will not tolerate sanctions against contributors attempting to enforce a global ban in good faith or of users who edit war or, otherwise, attempt to prevent them from doing so."
- New administrators: The Signpost welcomes the English Wikipedia's newest administrator, Widr.
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Motherboard, the tech website of Vice magazine, features two articles by Jason Koebler on the rise of Wikipedia Zero as a free file sharing platform in Angola (March 23, 25).
Wikimedia and Facebook have given Angolans free access to their websites, but not to the rest of the internet. So, naturally, Angolans have started hiding pirated movies and music in Wikipedia articles and linking to them on closed Facebook groups, creating a totally free and clandestine file sharing network in a country where mobile internet data is extremely expensive.
It's an undeniably creative use of two services that were designed to give people in the developing world some access to the internet. But now that Angolans are causing headaches for Wikipedia editors and the Wikimedia Foundation, no one is sure what to do about it.
The sharing of copyrighted files via Wikipedia Zero conflicts with Wikimedia sites' copyright rules, and volunteers from Portuguese-language Wikimedia projects (Angola is a former Portuguese colony, thus Portuguese is widely spoken there) recently raised their troubles with Angolan Wikipedia Zero users on the Wikimedia-l mailing list (see the brief note in last week's Signpost issue).
The problems were first brought to the Wikimedia Foundation's attention last summer; they are complicated by the fact that Angola has some of the laxest copyright laws in the world: what Angolan users are doing may, in some cases, not even be illegal in their country. But the Wikimedia Foundation is located in the United States, and a Phabricator task has been created in response to Koebler's article to "prevent Wikipedia Zero exploitation of uploads to share copyrighted media".
Koebler maintains that this kind of situation is a natural consequence of "digital colonialism". In a follow-up article he argues that "Wikipedia doesn't realise it's the developing world's Internet gatekeeper":
Angolans on Wikipedia Zero and the Portuguese Wikipedia editors they are annoying don't have anything resembling equal access to the internet. Wikipedia Zero and Facebook Free Basics are the only services that many Angolans have access to (for the record, this is happening in other countries with Wikipedia Zero, too).
To many Angolans, Koebler says, living in a country where 50 MB of mobile data costs $2.50 and the median annual salary is $720, Wikipedia Zero and Facebook Zero (now renamed Free Basics) have simply become the Internet.
The Wikimedia Foundation sent Koebler a response to his first article, which he posted online. Koebler essentially dismissed the response, and frames the dispute as part of a larger debate about zero-rated services against the backdrop of the Indian government's recent decision to outlaw zero-rated services on net neutrality grounds:
There's an intense debate going on right now over whether zero rating has any role in bridging the digital divide and in connecting the half of the world that doesn’t have regular internet access. What we risk human rights groups like Access Now say, is telling people in developing countries that being able to connect to just a few sites is "enough", an effect that "tips the balance in favor of zero-rated services, effectively salting the earth of low-cost net neutral alternatives in the future." That argument was enough for India to ban Wikipedia Zero, Free Basics, and zero-rating altogether earlier this year.
Koebler quotes Vishal Misra, a Columbia University professor who provided testimony to the Indian parliament in the recent debates. Noting that the Wikimedia Foundation has received less criticism than Facebook for its zero-rated service, Misra says:
Wikipedia is a nonprofit, but that's about it. There hasn't been a backlash but I don't think people who have been arguing this issue with any level of depth have said that Wikipedia Zero is any better than Free Basics. [...] From the response of Wikipedia to your article, it's clear they are not concerned about increasing access. They are concerned about maintaining Wikipedia's popularity and influence. Either you make everything cheaper or you don't have it at all. Otherwise, people find loopholes and it destructs the whole ecosystem. We need to increase access, otherwise you are just trying to keep people hooked on a free service.
TechDirt's Tim Cushing has also weighed in (March 25), saying that "Zero-rating – the nifty trick companies use to edge around net neutrality rules – is being offered to developing countries as a way to provide cheap internet access to their citizens. There's a bit of altruism in the offerings, but there's also a lot of walls surrounding gardens." He agrees with Koebler that there are three possible solutions to the situation in Angola, all of which are unpalatable:
- The Wikimedia Foundation could pull the service from Angola – but this would deprive many impoverished citizens of their only access to the internet.
- Volunteers could start playing whack-a-mole with content and new Wikipedia/Facebook accounts – but this imposes a heavy burden on volunteers and is really "no solution at all".
- Angolan users start to "behave themselves". However, this third solution is actually the worst solution of all, Cushing argues, following Koebler's line of reasoning:
As Koebler explains, this proposed solution is predicated on some terrible assumptions about how people must behave to "earn" internet access privileges.
- "Many on the listserv [i.e. the Wikimedia-l mailing list] are framing Angola's Wikipedia pirates as bad actors who need to be dealt with in some way so that more responsible editors aren't punished for their actions. This line of thinking inherently assumes that what Angola's pirates are doing is bad for Wikipedia and that they must be assimilated to the already regulated norms of Wikipedia's community. If the developing world wants to use our internet, they must play by our rules, the thinking goes."
Playing by the rules – which basically means curbing infringement to appease rights holders – may be a bad thing for Angolans in the long run, even if it seems like a plausible short-term solution. The "loopholes" in these zero-rated services aren't limited to spreading pirated content. They could also serve as handy tools for activism and dissent.
- "Angolan's pirates are learning how to organize online, they're learning how to cover their tracks, they are learning how to direct people toward information and how to hide and share files. Many of these skills are the same ones that would come in handy for a dissident or a protester or an activist. Considering that Angola has had an autocratic leader in power for more than 35 years, well, those are skills that might come in handy one day."
Shutting down dubious uses of the services will only result in greater local control of internet access, which is the last thing the country needs. The fact that people are using a service in ways it was never intended to be used is a feature, not a bug.
The debate is likely to continue, and it seems certain that both Internet activists and intellectual property rights advocates will closely watch the Wikimedia movement's response.
The 3D printer edit war
The edit war at RepRap project, briefly mentioned in last week's "In the media", is the subject of an in-depth report (March 23) in Motherboard by Roisin Kiberd. Conflicts between contributors at the Wikipedia article focused on the fact that much of its lengthy content lacked references to independent secondary sources.
Jytdog, a veteran contributor to discussions at the conflict of interest noticeboard, is quoted at some length in Kiberd's report on the difficulty of editing topics in Wikipedia that people feel passionate about:
Passion is a double-edged sword that way. It drives people to contribute but you only get the fans or the haters, and encyclopedic content goes out the window. [...]
Almost all Wikipedians agree that "advocacy editing" is a really big problem. Advocacy editing is when somebody comes to Wikipedia who is, say, an ardent vegetarian (or meat-eater) and believes eating meat is evil (or awesome), or hates (or loves) some politician or company or product or video game, and adds non-neutral and often unsourced or badly sourced content reflecting whatever their passion is. Advocates tend to behave badly as well.
Jytdog eventually told Kiberd that he would no longer take part in editing the article – as did one of his opponents, CaptainYuge, who declared the effort "a waste of time." Kiberd wondered whether Jytdog had done the right thing in reverting his own changes, which had deleted much unsourced and primary-sourced material. Jytdog responded:
Right or wrong I don't know. What I do know is that I don't much like working on topics where there are mostly low quality sources and active online communities; it just becomes a dramafest.
"Change and turmoil, not stability"
In the Christian Science Monitor, Simon DeDeo examines (March 24) the evolution of Wikipedia's complex social norms, noting "an evolving ecosystem of ideas" marked by many competing agendas, as well as a strong founder effect:
In many cases, the enduring norms were first written years before Wikipedia grew to fame, and when the population was a small fraction of what it would one day become. Just as the foundational precepts of the United States still govern us today and generate much commentary in the form of Supreme Court opinions, Wikipedia is governed by rules that originated among a small minority.
None of this was planned, of course: no super-user wired these networks together, or later pulled them apart. Instead, dynamic patterns emerged from the actions of thousands of individuals, each with their own idiosyncratic beliefs, working with and against each other to define what it meant to be a good Wikipedian.
The history of Wikipedia's culture, he says, is a "fundamentally social affair" whose evolutionary course no one could have predicted, marked by "turmoil and change – not stability".
In brief
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- NSFW: Cracked.com pokes fun at some of Wikipedia's explicit sexual illustrations. (Mar. 25)
- Limerick: Irish men's website Joe.ie chronicles some vandalism edits to Limerick Institute of Technology, University of Limerick and Waterford Institute of Technology. (Mar. 24–25)
- Megadeth: Loudwire plays "Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction" with Megadeth star Dave Mustaine. Mustaine apparently had so much to say that the episode is published in two instalments. Guitar Player covers the interview and wonders, "Who's going to make all these corrections on Dave's page?" (Mar. 23)
- Wales in Romania: Romanian English-language business news website actmedia.eu is among many Romanian sites covering Jimmy Wales' recent visit to Romania, describing him as "the genius behind Wikipedia". (Mar. 23)
- Women and Wikipedia: The Link looks at the history of Wikipedia's gender gap. (Mar. 21)
- Monkey selfie appeal: TechDirt and The Daily Dot are among sites reporting that PETA has appealed its loss in the monkey selfie copyright suit. (Mar. 20–21)
Be weary on the Ides of March
Shakespeare had a fortune teller forewarn Julius Caesar to beware the Ides of March. Given Caesar was assassinated that day, it's fair to say he was insufficiently wary. As are, it seems, our viewers, as numbers are significantly down on last week. Or perhaps they're simply weary, with a significant holdover of topics indicating that they found little new to be interested in.
For the full top-25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions. For a list of the most edited articles of the week, see here.
As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of March 13 to 19, 2016, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:
Rank Article Class Views Image Notes 1 Donald Trump 
2,412,293 
"Donald Trump", unsurprisingly, was the 17th most viewed article of 2015, during which it accrued over 14 million views. In the four weeks it has stood at #1 on this list, the article has garnered nearly 21 million views. If that number were included in last year's list, it would be at #5. Just for the last four weeks. So completely has Trump fused together the two principal preoccupations of our viewers (current events and entertainment) that it is simply impossible to know which reason is driving them more. Do our viewers see his presidential campaign as a genuine epochal shift in the political landscape of the US? Or simply as yet another reality TV show? Come the end of year one of President Trump's administration, it will be interesting to see if the show is still going. 2 Saint Patrick's Day 
2,042,316 
Every man has his day, at least if he's a saint. And when your day happens to involve copious alcohol consumption and opportunities for grade school cruelty, it is bound to be popular. 3 Merrick Garland
1,696,246 
Five days before Barack Obama named this federal judge from his home turf of Chicago his nominee for Justice of the Supreme Court, Republican senator Orrin Hatch cited him as a moderate candidate that Obama would never choose. Of course, the fact that Obama did choose Garland has not stopped Senate Republicans hoping to block confirmation until after the next president is elected, citing the "Biden Rule"; a term which didn't exist before this year and even Joe Biden has contested its existence. 4 10 Cloverfield Lane 
865,546 
The fact that this science fiction thriller, which was produced by J. J. Abrams and includes Mary Elizabeth Winstead (pictured) in the cast, has apparently nothing to do with the original Cloverfield (it was initially titled "The Cellar") does not seem to have deterred audiences or critics. It has earned $45 million in its first ten days; triple its production budget, and has a 90% RT rating. 5 Republican Party presidential primaries, 2016
721,981 
Seventeen began. Three remain. In the wake of the "Super Tuesday II" primary elections on the 15th, with Trump storming four of five states. The holdout, Ohio, was won by its current governor, John Kasich; much, I am sure, to his relief, as he had said he would drop out if it was not. Poor Marco Rubio had not said he would drop out if he lost his home state of Florida, but did so following his loss there. With the contest quiet until the next big primary push on the 22nd, the Presidential election has entered a kind of surreal cruise control, as the country waits to see if Trump can reach that magic number of 1237 delegates he needs to secure the nomination without a brokered convention. 6 Genie (feral child)
687,378 
This horrifying story, in which a young child was forced to spend the first thirteen years of her life in a blacked out room without any human contact, became the topic of intense discussion on Reddit this week, with many asking very difficult questions; was it right for the researchers to test her the way they did, or was she simply too good an opportunity to study cognitive development? Should she have gone back to her mother, who claimed she was forced into the abuse, or stayed with the researchers who had become, against scientific ethics, her surrogate parents? There are no easy answers when dealing with something so complex and fragile as a human life. 7 Ides of March
670,947 
The Ides of March (or March 15), the day on which Julius Caesar was assassinated, has lived on ever since as a metaphor for violent political transition; whether revolution in the name of freedom (As Brutus himself suggested on coins minted after the event) or betrayal in the name of political ideals, as William Shakespeare suggested in his Julius Caesar. With so-called "Super Tuesday II" falling on the Ides of March this year, and its resultant downfall of Marco Rubio, many are seeing the date reaffirm itself as a time of political reckoning. 8 Deaths in 2016 
634,903 
The annual list of deaths has always been a fairly consistent visitor to this list, averaging about 500,000 views a week. Since the death of David Bowie, this article's average views have jumped. 9 Saint Patrick
627,900 
The patron saint of Ireland was not, in fact, Irish, and actually may have been born in what would some day become England (but wasn't yet, so patriotic Irish readers can relax); he owes his status in Ireland to Irish pirates, who abducted him and took him there, giving him the familiarity he needed when he returned many years later to convert the locals. 10 Ariana Grande
619,144 
She isn't known for her acting chops, but Ariana Grande, by all accounts, crushed it as guest host of Saturday Night Live this week, doing spot-on impressions of Britney Spears, Shakira, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, and even Jennifer Lawrence, as well as a debut of her latest single, "Be Alright".
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"God damn it, you've got to be kind."
Earlier this week, I stumbled upon an obituary for a Wikipedia editor I knew.
I found it in the course of searching for Wikipedia-related news stories for The Signpost. I’m surprised I hadn’t found it earlier, when the obituary was new. It was an editor I had a number of congenial interactions with on the encyclopedia and via email. We thought quite highly of one another, but I couldn’t call him a friend—after all, I barely knew him.
His obituary told me more than I ever knew when he was alive. I hadn’t known he had been an actor. Not that he was a particularly successful one, but he has a respectable IMDB page with a dozen credits, including bit parts on Star Trek: The Next Generation. I hadn’t known that he escaped being a victim of 9/11—where four of his co-workers died in the north tower—by being out of town for a job interview. I hadn’t known that we had a number of common interests outside of Wikipedia. We might have gotten along famously.
And I also hadn’t known that he and his family thought highly enough of his work on Wikipedia to include it and his user name in his obituary.
This surprise was a stark reminder to me on this Easter weekend that the other people we interact with on the encyclopedia are all actual people, with their own lives and feelings, and not just lines of text and pseudonyms. We know that intellectually, of course, but we often don’t act like we remember it.
Many of us, especially those of us who are active in the community interactions and institutions of Wikimedia, know people online we consider friends who are just as dear to us as friends in our immediate physical proximity. But for the majority of editors on Wikimedia projects, including myself for much of my tenure here, other people are just disembodied lines of text.
"God damn it, you've got to be kind."
23 March 2016
The new alchemy: turning online harassment into Wikipedia articles on women scientists
9 March 2016
It’s time to stop the bullying
28 October 2015
Wikipedia, our Colosseum
31 December 2012
As a result, it’s far too easy forget that all of the words on our encyclopedia were written by another person.
We need to do a better job of remembering that. It’s 2016—we’ve had the internet for far too long to keep acting like it’s not “real life”, that we don’t have to adhere to responsible standards of interpersonal conduct, that the actions taken there don’t have real life consequences. The internet allows many people to be what they cannot be offline for whatever reason. That can be liberating and fulfilling in positive ways, but too many others indulge in negative behavior they are unable to get away with offline. All of the editors reading this can name at least one person in the latter category.
A popular quote circulating in some quarters of the encyclopedia likens Wikipedia to a shop floor, but through no fault of its author, this characterization is occasionally invoked to justify behavior that would result in immediate termination in an offline workplace.
Forgetting one another’s humanity is not treating the encyclopedia like a shop floor; it is treating it like a public playground; Wikipedia and other online spaces should not be consequence-free places for negative behavior by people who can otherwise pretend to be good people in the rest of their lives. What we do and how we act on Wikipedia matters just as it matters offline.
Why else would someone's family make a note of it in their loved one's obituary?
There will always be people who can’t or won’t look at their own behavior, because they have antisocial tendencies, or lack empathy, or simply need forums to address personal issues that would be better handed by professionals. But the rest of us can stop excusing that behavior. We can stop blaming people for “feeding the trolls” when victims justifiably complain, stop dismissing or minimizing the negative consequences of it, and stop indulging in it ourselves in our weaker moments.
We don’t have to be perfect. We can be angry when justifiably provoked. We can be snarky and sarcastic. We can make mistakes. But we should do that while remembering there are other people involved, just as we would in our interpersonal interactions offline.
We can do better. We can be better.
Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—"God damn it, you've got to be kind."
— Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
Watch out! A slave trader, a live mascot and a crested serpent awaits!
Text may be adapted from the respective articles and lists; see their page histories for attribution.
Featured articles
Four featured articles were promoted this week.
- Isopogon anemonifolius (nominated by Casliber and Melburnian) is a shrub of the family Proteaceae that is found only in eastern New South Wales in Australia. It occurs naturally in woodland, open forest and heathland on sandstone soils. Its leaves are divided and narrow, and have a purplish tinge during the cooler months. The yellow flowers appear during late spring or early summer and are displayed prominently. They are followed by round grey cones, which give the plant its common name broad-leaved drumsticks.
- The Oceanides (nominated by Sgvrfjs) is a single-movement tone poem for orchestra written in 1913–14 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. The piece, which refers to the nymphs in Greek mythology who inhabited the Mediterranean Sea, premiered in 1914 at the Norfolk Music Festival in Connecticut. It consists of two subjects, said to represent the playful activity of the nymphs and the majesty of the ocean, respectively. Sibelius gradually develops this material over three informal stages: first, a placid ocean; second, a gathering storm; and third, a thunderous wave-crash climax. As the tempest subsides, a final chord sounds, symbolizing the mighty power and limitless expanse of the sea.
- Monroe Edwards (nominated by Ealdgyth) (1808–1847) was an American slave trader, forger and convicted criminal who was the subject of a well-publicized trial and conviction in 1842. Convicted partly because his distinctive good looks made him memorable and easily recognizable, and partly from making the same spelling errors in his fakes, Edwards was sentenced to 10 years in prison and died in 1847 while incarcerated.
- Thunder (nominated by Montanabw) is the stage name for the horse who is the official live animal mascot for the Denver Broncos football team. Three purebred Arabians have held this role since 1993, all gray horses whose coats lightened with age until they turned completely white. Thunder's duties as mascot typically include leading the team onto the field at the start of every home game, and a gallop down the length of the field whenever the team scores a touchdown or field goal. Thunder and his rider also interact with fans before the game; the horse is particularly popular with children, who are allowed to pet him.
Featured pictures
Four featured pictures were promoted this week.
Palestine–Israel article 3 case amended
While the Arbitration Committee have been quiet lately and no new cases have been open so far for 2016, we can at least report on decisions made by the committee recently. On 19 March, the committee amended the Palestine–Israel articles 3 case as follows:
Remedy 2 (General Prohibition) is replaced with, "All IP editors, accounts with fewer than 500 edits, and accounts with less than 30 days tenure are prohibited from editing any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab–Israeli conflict. This prohibition may be enforced by reverts, page protections, blocks, the use of pending changes, and appropriate edit filters."
The 500/30 protection sanction has been seen as a controversial form of protection, first being implemented in the GamerGate controversy article. As there has been a slump in activity for the Arbitration Committee, I think that it's best to ask the readers of the report on their take on this sanction: what do you think of the 500/30 protection sanction?
Podcast #120—the status of Wikimania 2016
In this week's episode, Andrew Lih (Fuzheado) interviews Iolanda Pensa (Iopensa) on the status of Wikimania 2016 in Esino Lario, Italy. The discussion reveals what attendees can expect to find in the small town in the Lake Como region of northern Italy, and how the bidding team came up with a vision for the annual conference. They also talk about upcoming deadlines for conference programming and future of Wikimania.
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Wikipedia Weekly is a spoken English-language audio podcast that discusses the Wikimedia movement, and has been produced intermittently since 2006. These new episodes mark a return to what we hope will be a semi-regular publication schedule and will be regularly featured in The Signpost.
We welcome a diverse range of participation and voices from all over the community. Ideas and feedback can be left on the talk page on the main Wikipedia Weekly page, and an active Facebook group has been popular in keeping the conversation going between episodes. We welcome community help in indexing the time code and topics discussed, to make for easier navigation of the content.
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