Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2012-10-22

Single-page Edition

WP:POST/1

22 October 2012

Special report
Examining adminship from the German perspective

Arbitration report
Malleus Fatuorum accused of circumventing topic ban; motion to change "net four votes" rule

Technology report
Wikivoyage migration: technical strategy announced

Discussion report
Good articles on the main page?; reforming dispute resolution

News and notes
Wikimedians get serious about women in science

WikiProject report
Where in the world is Wikipedia?

Adminship from the German perspective

Contribute —

Share this

By Jan eissfeldt

How the German Wikipedia got on top of RfA

Malleus Fatuorum accused of circumventing topic ban; motion to change "net four votes" rule

Contribute —

Share this

By James and The ed17

There are two requests for clarification and amendment, nine requests for enforcement, and one motion. One clarification request concerns the civility enforcement case – specifically, a question about the interpretation of Malleus Fatuorum's topic ban.

Civility enforcement clarification request

Isarra initiated a clarification request concerning what she perceived as an issue with Malleus Fatuorum's topic ban. Citing numerous diffs, she pointed out that while Malleus had adhered to his topic ban (from all pages beginning with the Wikipedia:Requests for adminship prefix), he had initiated discussions not directly relevant to the given RfA — discussions which would be more suitable on the respective RfA talk page. She stated that when moving these discussions, she was reverted by other editors on the basis that such a move would have required Malleus to violate the terms of his topic ban. In submitting the request, she asked whether the topic ban caused further disruption and whether it should be extended to cover all discussion on RfA.

The first motion proposed called for Malleus to be banned from Wikipedia for six months and the extension of his topic ban to include RfA in its entirety and related discussions elsewhere. The motion failed to reach a consensus, but resulted in significant controversy. Initially, this was from the sudden change from a clarification to a vote to ban a long-term contributor. Many uninvolved parties believed that it was a step too far, and called for smaller measures, including a topic ban from any RfA-related and/or the mutual interaction bans of Malleus Fatuorum and (individually) MONGO, Jc37, and Hersfold.

RegentsPark summed up the ultimate fallout in a non-arbitrator-proposed motion: "This entire affair is doing an incredible amount of damage to the Wikipedia community with battles breaking out all over the place and several prolific content contributors as well as several active administrators indicating their intention to retire." MONGO, on the other hand, believed that the motion did not go far enough: "I suggest Malleus be site banned for not less than 30 days, and any of the usual cadre of aiding and abetting admins that might excessively protest such a ban be emergency desysopped. Think my suggestion is extreme? Do nothing now and that will be where this charade ends anyway, more or less". Adding to the ultimate drama, Malleus Fatuorum was blocked by User:Stephan Schulz for "[p]ersonal attacks or harassment", but it was promptly undone by Boing! said Zebedee, who had already announced his intention to retire over the debacle.

However, the proposed motion was far from the only source of contention. An even greater amount of vitriolic discussion resulted from arbitrator Jclemens' support of the ban motion:

It is clear that Malleus has never been interested in upholding the fourth pillar, even if you presume that he has a differing interpretation of what constitutes civility. He has had plenty of chances to do so, and has intentionally avoided behaving in a collegial manner despite those chances. It's time to face the fact that Malleus is not now, nor has he ever been, a member of the Wikipedia community. ... it is appropriate to recognize that it is in embracing all the pillars that an editor is truly a community member. Vandals, POV-pushers, self-promoters, and copyright violators are all eventually shown the door if they will not reform ... [Malleus has] failed to self-reform even though he's clearly capable. Thus, Malleus has himself chosen to join those other groups in his self-selected banning; all we do here is acknowledge that Malleus has never been a Wikipedian, no matter how many otherwise constructive edits he has made.

These comments led various editors to call for Jclemens' resignation or recusal, a "no confidence" poll in both the arbitration committee and Jclemens himself, and a short-lived block of Jclemens by Floquenbeam. Other arbitrators were quick to disassociate themselves from the comments. Risker clarified that Jclemens was speaking for himself, not the committee, while Kirill Lokshin stated:

Malleus is a Wikipedian; he has always been a Wikipedian; and he will continue to be a Wikipedian even if we ban him. We cannot strip away someone's identity by motion, nor declare them an unperson because they no longer follow our party line.

A second motion was proposed, calling for the extension of his topic ban to cover discussion of RfA in its entirety. An exception would be made, however, to allow Malleus to !vote on an RfA and ask questions to the candidate addressing his concerns. An uninvolved admin may remove comments in contravention of this remedy and impose blocks if/when necessary. As of the time of writing, this motion is passing 9–1.

Motion on "net four votes" rule

A motion proposed by arbitrator AGK calling for changes to the opening of proceedings was enacted.

Its acceptance has been supported by at least four net votes;
More than 24 hours have elapsed since the request passed the threshold of four net votes; and
More than 48 hours have elapsed since the request was filed.

A proceeding may be opened earlier, waiving provisions 2 and 3 above, if a majority of arbitrators support fast-track opening in their acceptance votes.

Criterion 1 now requires that there be either four net votes or an absolute majority of active, non-recused arbitrators. Accordingly, the wording of criterion 2 was changed to state "since the request came to satisfy the above provision." No other changes were made.

Reader comments

2012-10-22

Wikivoyage migration: technical strategy announced

Contribute —

Share this

By Jarry1250

Möller sets out Wikivoyage migration plan

Planning for Wikivoyage's migration into the WMF fold built up steam this week following a statement by WMF Deputy Director Erik Möller about what the technical side of the migration will involve. Wikivoyage, which split from sister site Wikitravel in 2006 (see previous Signpost coverage), is hoping to migrate its own not-inconsiderable user base to Wikimedia, as well as much of its content, presenting novel challenges for Wikimedia developers

Firstly, there is the physical creation of a new "wikifamily" populated with at least six language-specific wikis (one each in German, Italian, English, French, Dutch and Swedish) to consider. As long as a new logo is in place to complement the recently chosen name (Wikivoyage), that part of the migration is unlikely to cause many difficulties per se. Once the wikis are established, developers will use a process tested on a Wikimedia Labs instance to import content from Wikivoyage whilst ensuring that all legal requirements are met.

User migration is likely to be far more difficult, and yet, given the need to preserve legal attribution, just as necessary. By default, imported content retains its history, replete with links to the user pages of the editors mentioned therein. If not adjusted properly, this could lead to the contributions of two different users being merged, or the contributions of the same user being split.

Also likely to be tricky is getting Wikivoyage's full array of extensions (of which a dozen are tagged as high priority) reviewed for performance, functionality and security, and then deploying them to Wikimedia's newest wikis, a process which may go on for weeks after content and users have migrated, Möller suggested. Only then will original Wikitravel users find out if the WMF can provide them with a superior level of technical support to the for-profit they left behind earlier this year.

Interested users can track Wikivoyage-import-related bugs via a special tracking bug. The aforementioned migration of content and users is planned for the coming fortnight.

In brief

Signpost poll

Non-WMF-deployed extensions

You can now give your opinion on next week's poll: The Wikivoyage migration: the priority is that...?

Not all fixes may have gone live to WMF sites at the time of writing; some may not be scheduled to go live for several weeks.

Your edit was saved: A new post-edit notification went live on Thursday October 18, ensuring that users know their edit has been saved. The small box, which is both dismissable and permanently hideable using user CSS is based on an idea originally trialled with new users and found to increase the chance of repeat edits. It was developed by the Foundation's Editor Engagement Experiments (E3) team.
action=info: With MediaWiki 1.21wmf2 being deployed on an increasing number of wikis, attention has been drawn to a new "Page information" item in the toolbox (wikitech-ambassadors mailing list). The feature, developed by several volunteer developers working in collaboration, is an attempt to bring back a page that had been briefly enabled some time ago (but then almost immediately disabled). It gives basic metadata about a page, selecting what it shows based on relevance and the viewer's permissions level (only administrators, for example, can use it to see how many watchers a page has). It is intended to replace a series of ad-hoc tools (many of them based on the Toolserver) which provide similar functionality less efficiently; suggestions for new data points are welcomed on Bugzilla.
Expanded +2 access: The Foundation is deliberately giving more developers the ability to approve and merge core MediaWiki code, WMF Deputy Director Erik Möller clarified this week (wikitech-l mailing list). The beneficiaries of the change are full-time engineering staff (all of whom can now merge core code) and an increasing number of volunteers. With great power comes great responsibility, however, and the new reviewers are expected to only merge code in their own area of expertise (for example, JavaScript work). Developers found merging large chunks of their own unreviewed code should also expect to have the right taken away from them, Möller said.
Google Code-In: Following the Wikimedia Foundation's successful participation in Google Summer of Code (GSoC) this year, WMF Engineering Community Manager Sumana Harihareswara raised the possibility of the WMF also participating in sister project Google Code-In (wikitech-l). The latter, which focusses on 13- to 17-year-olds (compared to GSoC's 18–25 age bracket) assigns participants smaller tasks, the completion of which is checked by experienced developers (mentors). The cost-benefit analysis of participation is complicated by the fact that its existing processes do not age discriminate, suggesting that applicants may be better off as general contributors rather than working within a more rigid framework.

Reader comments

2012-10-22

Good articles on the main page?; reforming dispute resolution

Contribute —

Share this

By J36miles

Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include:

Proposals

Redesign of Help:Contents: A redesign of Wikipedia's main help page has been proposed.
Reforming dispute resolution: The Wikipedia dispute resolution process has been under fire for a lack of volunteers which causes backlogs. Your help is requested to discuss proposed changes to the dispute resolution process.
Good Article Main Page section: A section for good article of the day has been proposed to be added to the main page.
Good Article Did you Know: A new criterion has been proposed that would allow good articles that have been promoted within 5 days to be eligible for the Did You Know process.
Limit block permissions: A proposal is being discussed to limit block rights to a selected group to limit blocks that are immediately removed.

Requests for comment

Syntax highlighting: A discussion of different forms of highlighting has been started to find out what should be highlighted and if it should be enabled by default.
Civility enforcement: Civility is one of the five pillars of Wikipedia yet there are issues regarding civil behavior. This discussion will attempt to resolve issues with civility and responses to those issues.
Arbitration Committee Elections: Arbitration Committee elections are coming up in December and the community wants help to determine the structure for the proceedings.
Actresses categorization: The policies at categorization in regards to using Category:Actors and Category:Actresses are under discussion.
Abortion advocacy movement coverage: Feedback is wanted to help decide the fate of the articles Support for the legalization of abortion and Opposition to legal abortion in regards to scope and title.

Reader comments

2012-10-22

Wikimedians get serious about women in science

Contribute —

Share this

By Tony1, Phoebe, and Jan eissfeldt

It is well known that women are underrepresented in the sciences, and that high-achieving female scientists have often been excluded from authorship lists and passed over for awards and honours solely on the basis of gender. Also significant has been the underplaying in the academic literature, news reporting, and online, of women's current and historical contributions to science.

Last week saw members of the Wikimedia movement collaborate with other institutions to celebrate Ada Lovelace Day 2012 in at least six countries. Ada Lovelace was a 19th-century English mathematical engineer who worked with Charles Babbage on what many people consider to be the scientific precursor of the computer. The most high-profile event was organised by Daria Cybulska, Wikimedia UK's Events Organiser, and Andrew Gray, Wikipedian in Residence at the British Library: an afternoon editathon at the library of the prestigious Royal Society in London, which has a rich collection of sources in the history of science and biographies of scientists. The editathon was followed by an evening panel discussion chaired by Professor Uta Frith, the eminent researcher on autism and dyslexia, and a Fellow of the Royal Society.

The London event received significant press coverage, including articles in Scientific American ("Royal Society runs science women wiki marathon "), the Independent ("Wikipedia gets overdue makeover to give recognition to science's female pioneers"), the Telegraph ("Shining a light on our science heroines"), the Guardian ("Wikipedia edit-a-thon brings women scientists out of the shadows"; "Why women fade into the background on Wikipedia"), the Huffington Post ("Wikipedia pushes to cover more women, attract female editors"; "Wikipedia edit-a-thon at Royal Society aims to fill in gaps of women in science"), Wired UK (Science Royal Society edit-a-thon to improve Wikipedia articles about women in science"), BBC Online, and an interview with editathon participant Dr Nathalie Pettorelli on BBC national radio's Today programme. The Guardian also ran a companion story on Wikipedia's gender gap.

The event was highlighted by the Royal Society itself on their website and librarian's newsletter; in honour of the occasion, the Royal Society made a few selected biographies of women scientists from the closed-access Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society freely available for the week.

The editathon had a structured half-hour at the beginning – a short introduction from Felicity Henderson (the Royal Society), Daria (for the UK chapter), and Suw Charman-Anderson (for Ada Lovelace Day). Andrew Gray then gave a short practical tutorial in editing Wikipedia, and people got to work on the topics they'd selected, helped by editors Katie Chan and Tom Morris).

Andrew told the Signpost that "the editathon went really well", with at least 15 articles created at the physical event in London, and many more by people joining the editathon remotely. The editathon was fully subscribed days before, given the limitations of the room – an enthusiasm that was reflected in numerous favourable comments on Twitter. Andrew said, "A couple of people brought their own sources (or worked from online sources) but we made good use of the RS library. Most attendees were new, but specialists in the field: we had several people there from a history-of-science background; they'd looked at the people they wanted to work on beforehand and could easily put their work into context and indicate its significance."

On the same day, Indian editors contributed online to the London editathon, organised by Netha Hussain and coordinated with Daria. Netha is a medical student who works on both English and Malayalam Wikipedias; in parallel with the UK organisers, she identified articles for creation and expansion, and created a separate section for India in the event page. She told us, "Six new articles about Indian women scientists were created and one article was copy-edited and expanded. A new category for Indian women scientists was created. Indian editors were joined by administrators and bot owners on the English Wikipedia in adding images, copy-editing, and placing interwiki links. A related editathon was conducted over three days on the Malayalam Wikipedia, during which nine new articles about women scientists were created."

Back in London, the evening panel discussion was attended by some 70 people and was moderated by Uta Frith. Daria gave a recap of the Wikipedia angle, Suw Charman-Anderson spoke about Ada Lovelace Day, and Richard Holmes gave a short talk about the history of women in science. The themes of the discussion included why some fields are more female than others; how much of the under-representation of women is traceable to problems in education and the gender conditioning of boys and girls; and the ways in which science sometimes does not work well for women in academic environments.

On Ada Lovelace Day itself – the Tuesday three days before – editathons had already been held in Boston and Stockholm, and there had been a celebration in the WMF's offices in San Francisco. The WMF event was organised by Valerie Aurora, director of the Ada Initiative, who gave a talk about Ada Lovelace, the significance of the day of celebration, and the Ada Initiative.

Andrew Gray told the Signpost, "I think we'd really like to hold a similar event next year – there seems to be a lot of enthusiasm for it. I think it would work very well as an international or multilingual event. As well as the Indian participation, the event prompted the translation into Arabic of a set of articles on women in computing, and a number of articles were created in Russian."

This was echoed by Katie Chan: "The goals of these events were to increase the numbers of women taking up science and technology and editing Wikipedia, and to improve our coverage of related topics. Similar events will no doubt be organised by Wikimedia UK, and elsewhere by other chapters and the foundation."

Daria commented: "As much as the thematic focus of the event was to create articles about women in science, we succeeded in gathering a room full of women really enthusiastic about learning to contribute to Wikipedia. I hope they will continue editing in the future."

One remaining women-in-science event will be held in Oxford on 26 October, organised by a group at that university.

Brief notes

Media coverage
- Wikipedia's commercialization: Salon asked "Is Wikipedia going commercial?" in a recent article. The author interviewed many Wikipedians for the piece and said on the difficulty of editing: "The intimidating and often confusing ways of Wiki-world have created a new iteration of the Ivory Tower it once sought to replace. Instead of academic and professional credentials, one has to have the patience to learn the ways of the insular, anonymous culture that has evolved."
- Wikipedia Zero: After the Wikimedia Foundation announced an initiative to make Wikipedia access freely available to Saudi Telecom (STC) mobile users in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Kuwait, stories appeared in many outlets, including the Saudi Gazette, Arabian Business, and CNET. There was also coverage in Arabic-language media.
- Russian Wikipedians interviewed: The BBC interviewed three Russian Wikipedians, including Vladimir Medeyko, director of Wikimedia Russia. In Russian: [1], audio version. One of the Wikipedians interviewed, Anastasia Lvova, is also the subject of a recent WMF blog post by Netha Hussain.
- WLM on tv: Wiki Loves Monuments was featured in a program on Israeli television (Hebrew language clip).
- Wikipedian profiled: Kevin Gorman was profiled by the UC Berkeley news service, where Gorman is a student.
Wikivoyage logo: Meta is looking for logo proposals for the planned new travel guide project.
Chapter association tasks: On October 15, a page to brainstorm the tasks of the organization Wikimedia chapters are working to set up to improve their cooperation has been published on Meta.
Wikimedia United States Federation bylaw vote result: The vote on the draft bylaws ended on October 22 with 13 ayes, 7 nays, and one conditional aye.
Wikimedia CEE conference: The documentation of the conference of Wikimedia organizations working in or with Central and Eastern europe has been published on Meta.

Reader comments

2012-10-22

Where in the world is Wikipedia?

Contribute —

Share this

By Mabeenot

WikiProject news

News in brief

WikiProject Military history has published its monthly newsletter, The Bugle.
WikiProject Wikify is hosting a mini drive this month
WikiProject Articles for Creation is hosting its first AFC Backlog Elimination Drive from 22 October to 21 November
Sign-ups have begun for the November Copy Editing Backlog Elimination Drive

Submit your project's news and announcements for next week's WikiProject Report at the Signpost's WikiProject Desk.

The WikiProject Report normally brings tidings from Wikipedia's most active, inventive, and unique WikiProjects. This week, we're trying something new by focusing on Wikipedia's dark side: the various regional and national WikiProjects that are dead or dying. How can some tiny municipalities and exclaves generate highly active, cross-language, multimedia platforms (see MonmouthpediA and GibraltarpediA) while the projects representing many sovereign countries and entire continents wallow in obscurity? Today, we'll search for answers among geographic projects large and small, highly active and barely functioning, enthusiastic about the future and mired in past conflicts.

Where are we?

Surprisingly, neither the size of a geographic area nor the area's population seems to correspond with activity at WikiProjects. In terms of the sheer number of articles under a project's belt, the United States, India, Australia, Canada, and France each outnumber all of Africa lumped together. Meanwhile, the project covering all topics about the world's most populous country, China, has roughly the same number of articles as the task force covering just United States military history. But simply having a large number of articles doesn't mean people actually contribute or even pay attention to a particular project. After all, the only countries represented in the top 50 most watchlisted projects on Wikipedia are Japan and Germany.

Writing a weekly column about WikiProjects for the Signpost has allowed us to uncover some other peculiarities. For instance, we've interviewed the highly active WikiProject Oregon twice (2009 and 2011). When we approached WikiProject California, Oregon's southern neighbor and the most populous state in the United States, we had difficulty finding editors who thought the project was even "worthy" of an interview. That's a far cry from the strong responses we've had from tiny states like Connecticut and other entities like the District of Columbia. But alas, most of the projects covering states and cities in the US are far from active and, as a sign of the untenable status of many state-wide projects, WikiProject United States has absorbed the technical aspects of most state projects to ensure their neglected banners, templates, and categories don't rot away.

Canada is another matter. Despite a wealth of WikiProjects covering Canadian provinces, territories, regions, cities, communities, and related topics, only a few of these projects have active talk pages, with typical conversation threads for the past year consisting of a couple unanswered questions from non-members and a smattering of bot-delivered notifications. Most discussion of Canadian topics is directed to the Canadian Wikipedians' notice board. The WikiProject Report knows firsthand how difficult it can be to find an active Canadian WikiProject. After two years and several false-starts, we snagged a single editor willing to talk about WikiProject Toronto.

The United Kingdom has the opposite problem. WikiProject United Kingdom is actually an extension of the UK Wikipedians' notice board, although heated discussions may also erupt on the independent notice boards for Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish Wikipedians, as well as the talk pages for WikiProject Scotland, WikiProject Wales, and a variety of overseas territories. The projects covering the constituent countries of the United Kingdom are in such disarray, one exasperated member of WikiProject Scotland commented earlier this year that "nobody really gives a flying f*** about the Scotland-related content here at Wikipedia" to which another editor responded "Scotland is atrocious, but it's the same for most of the US, especially geography, full of stale articles nobody has added anything significant to since Rambot did his ramming."

There are hierarchies of projects representing regions, counties, and cities in the UK that each have their own talk pages, regardless of whether the project is active, semi-active, or inactive. But who actually watches all of these talk pages? If you want to find a lively discussion about the UK, the best places to go are the projects covering politics, military history, the ludicrously productive GLAM projects for Monmouth and Gibraltar, and a variety of transportation projects, whether by road, railway, or waterway.

Discussions about Australian articles tend to gravitate toward the Australian Wikipedians' notice board and the state project for Western Australia, leaving most of the city and state projects as empty shells. WikiProject Sydney's talk page redirects to the Australian noticeboard while smaller cities have retained their talk pages, for better or worse. Most of these projects were thriving communities a few years ago, evidenced by the many talk pages that are sorely in need of archiving. A few active projects still exist for topics like Australian politics and Australian rules football.

Projects for Germany and France each employ a sea of task forces which only show activity in spurts, usually resulting from a heated discussion spilling over from article talk pages. As a whole, Europe tends to be hit or miss. We definitely found signs of life at the active projects covering Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, and Switzerland.

India has a project, task force, or workgroup for everything, but good luck finding an active one. Most discussion takes place at the Noticeboard for India-related topics. Pakistan also sports a lively talk page and a laundry list of semi-active and inactive subprojects and task forces. Japan and South Korea are better represented than their more restricted neighbors in China and North Korea.

For the rest of Asia, Africa, South and Central America, and much of Europe, an eerie quiet pervades their talk pages. A single WikiProject will exist for each country with dead umbrella projects hovering above to provide some organization by region and continent. The few country projects that have task forces or subprojects often rely on other, more active projects like WikiProject Film, WikiProject Military History, or WikiProject Football to keep these task forces going on a day to day basis.

Why the difference?

The discrepancy between some geographic areas is likely a result of several factors, but chief among them is Wikipedia's systemic bias (there's even a WikiProject for that). Native English-speaking editors from Anglophone countries tend to contribute most to the English Wikipedia. A 2011 survey conducted by the Wikimedia Foundation found that 20 percent of Wikipedia editors come from the United States, while all other English-speaking countries are in single digits. Together, English-speakers account for 52 percent of all Wikipedia editors across all language versions of the encyclopedia.

With these editor demographics, it is no surprise that English-speaking parts of the world tend to be better represented by articles on Wikipedia and have a wider range of WikiProjects dedicated to building and maintaining those articles. Additionally, countries and regions where English is an official language (like India and Pakistan) or where English-language schooling is common (like some European countries) participate more than countries without broad teaching of English.

Outside of language barriers, access to the Internet is a prerequisite for contributing to an online encyclopedia. Groups who statistically have less access to the Internet are also underrepresented on Wikipedia, including people in developing nations and the poor in industrialized nations. But this does not always explain why certain states, provinces, and cities within the United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia tend to be more active than others.

Communities with large populations may benefit from having a larger pool of potential editors to draw from. On the other hand, smaller communities may be more cohesive and enable closer collaborations and even meetups in real life. Some areas may feature a confluence of notable landmarks, historical events, or recent news coverage that drive residents to contribute or attract editors from outside the area. Other areas may benefit from their obscurity, with highly motivated members attempting to put their town or region on the map.

Finally, there's the pure chance that two or more highly active contributors just happen to be from the same town, province, or small country. Maybe they found each other on the project's talk page or while working on some related topic. Friendships (or animosities) developed until the real-world community became the basis for a WikiProject community. If this is the case, it's likely that more Wikipedians are out there, unaware that their neighbors in real life are also toiling away on Wikipedia unnoticed.

What can be done?

All Wikipedians should take note of all the communities in which they have come into contact at some point in their lives. Where were you born? Where do you currently live? Where have you traveled? Where do your family and friends call home? Where would you like to go someday? Look up the Wikipedia articles for each of these places and see what shape the articles are currently in. Check the talk pages for these articles to see what WikiProjects currently oversee the articles and add these WikiProjects to your watchlist. Finally, start improving these encyclopedia articles. If the people who have lived in these places and experienced their communities don't care enough to improve the articles, why should we expect anyone else to bother?

But don't stop there. Check out the articles for neighboring cities, states, provinces, regions, or countries. Watch their projects' talk pages. For the more adventurous, Wikipedia's greatest need is in the global south. As one blogger quipped, "there are more Wikipedia articles written about the fictional places of Middle Earth and Discworld than about many countries in Africa, the Americas and Asia."

Africa possibly poses the greatest challenge. Every country in Africa has a project, but most serve as little more than placeholders with no significant edits or discussions in years. With 54 recognized sovereign countries and nearly a dozen disputed territories, it may be too much to ask that every one of these WikiProjects be revived at the snap of a finger. But until these communities begin to grow on their own, someone should at least be watching the projects to ensure that questions don't go unanswered and new contributors feel that they're not alone.

Until then, WikiProject Africa, WikiProject African Diaspora, and the unique WikiAfrica can serve as a clearing house for editors wanting to build content about the countries and communities of Africa.

In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, projects covering Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria saw small bursts of activity, but much of that energy has receded in recent months. WikiProject Arab World can serve as a springboard for reviving and sustaining the projects of Northern Africa and Western Asia, but only if editors are watching and participating.

In Latin America, projects for Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela are growing, but could use help building articles, geotagging, and finding reliable sources. WikiProject Mexico is surprisingly quiet, considering the vast number of bilingual expatriates living in the United States and elsewhere. WikiProject Caribbean alone has 27 subprojects and working groups that need attention.

In Asia, the projects for smaller countries are often overshadowed by China, India, and Japan. That hasn't stopped those smaller countries from drawing contributors. The talk page for WikiProject Vietnam is just as active as China's. The project covering the Koreas has performed admirably, even though tough censorship in the North limits coverage of one side of the peninsula. Editors interested in Asia will find projects from Mongolia to Brunei that could use help.

Europe is not without its shortcomings. The talk page for WikiProject Italy is primarily a home for unanswered questions. WikiProject Hungary isn't even included in WikiProject Europe's list of child projects. The projects for Austria, Finland, Greece, Iceland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Portugal could use more members. If WikiProjects covering large countries like Spain struggle to stay active, what hope is there for the microstates?

The top level projects for the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and India need to determine at what point their vast arrays of child projects and task forces actually impede their efforts. Can some of these child projects be revived or should they be consolidated?

WikiProject United States has already begun to consolidate, streamlining a few tasks while aggravating some active child projects in the process. However, even in the country that is the most covered by Wikipedia, there are significant holes that need addressing. City projects from Miami to Seattle need a facelift. States from Texas to Maine could use a shot of adrenaline. Topics ranging from presidents to superfunds to the wild west are lacking the editors needed to build and sustain their articles.

The United Kingdom needs help improving communication between its separate communities, building on the abilities of its most active projects while coaxing editors to contribute to areas outside their hometown or hobby. As the aforementioned exasperated Scot complained, "we all potter about doing our own little projects." The WikiProjects for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland need rejuvenation and their corresponding noticeboards should either be integrated with the projects' talk pages or merged with the UK noticeboard. Sure, not every project can compete with Gibraltar in terms of editor enthusiasm, but building an encyclopedia requires more than simply keeping calm and carrying on.

WikiProject Canada, while a good place for discussion, desperately needs to revive or consolidate its child projects. A proposal is already being discussed that would redirect the remaining talk pages to the Canadian noticeboard, hopefully avoiding situations "where the occasional post at the sub-projects is met by the deafening sound of crickets."

Likewise, Australian and Indian editors are needed for inactive and semi-active state and city projects everywhere. WikiProject Sydney, WikiProject Canberra, WikiProject Mumbai, and WikiProject Delhi should not be overshadowed by WikiProject Lowell, Massachusetts.

How can we keep it going?

Let's build the entire globe

In an attempt to adequately cover projects from all over the world, the WikiProject Report has sought out geographic diversity for our interviews whenever possible, succeeding in some respects and failing in others. A skim of the archives reveals that English-speaking cities, regions, and countries still receive an undue proportion of our coverage. When we do cover other parts of the world, we've skewed toward Eastern Europe and Asia, neglecting much of Africa, South and Central America, and non-anglophone parts of Western and Central Europe. Inequalities even exist among the English-speaking parts of the world. The United States and Britain are represented particularly strongly while Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and others barely register. We've started including WikiProjects from Wikipedia's other languages to expand our horizons, but we'd still like to see more of the English Wikipedia's geographic projects return to fully active status.

Today, we challenge every Wikipedian to find a corner of the world that they already know or that they want to learn more about. Dust off a forgotten WikiProject, add it to your watchlist, and start expanding the neglected articles. It is our hope that more projects from neglected geographic regions will be featured in the WikiProject Report in the years ahead. It can be difficult to find projects with active members who are willing to share their experiences, but if you're willing to seek out new ways to build a better encyclopedia, we'll find you.

Next week, we'll see how one of the most active WikiProjects rewards its members. Until then, we hope you find motivation in our past adventures.

Reader comments

2012-10-22

Is RfA Kafkaesque?

Contribute —

Share this

By Crisco 1492

This edition covers content promoted from 14 to 20 October 2012

Kafka would surely have some opinion about the current RFA process; is it a metamorphosis, trial, or impenetrable castle?

Featured articles

Eleven featured articles were promoted this week:

Lycoperdon perlatum (nom) by Sasata. L. perlatum is a species of puffball fungus in the family Agaricaceae which has an almost cosmopolitan distribution. The medium-sized fungus is off-white with a top covered in short spiny bumps, turning brown as it matures. It can usually be distinguished from other puffballs by differences in surface texture; L. Perlatum is edible when young and its extracts have antimicrobial and antifungal activities.
Stan Coveleski (nom) by Wizardman. Coveleski (1889–1984) was an American Major League Baseball pitcher who primarily threw the spitball. He pitched in 450 career games, representing four different teams. He began his career in 1908 and, even after the spitball was banned in 1920, continued to use the pitch with league approval. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1969, posting a win–loss record of 215–142, with 224 complete games, 38 shutouts, and a 2.89 earned run average .
Peter Warlock (nom) by Brianboulton. Philip Arnold Heseltine (1894–1930), best known by his pseudonym Peter Warlock, was an Anglo-Welsh composer and music critic also known for his interest in the occult and often scandalous lifestyle. He began writing as early as 1915 and, after spending time in Ireland, wrote heated critical commentary and composing songs in a distinctive, original style. His most productive period was the 1920s, but by the end of his life Warlock felt that he had lost his inspiration.
Hiram Wesley Evans (nom) by Mark Arsten and Crisco 1492. Evans (1881–1966) was Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, an American white supremacist group, from 1922 to 1939. A dentist by trade, Evans joined the Klan in 1920 and had soon usurped William Joseph Simmons. Introducing a series of reforms, he worked to make the Klan a a political juggernaut. The group's membership grew into the millions before declining after a series of leadership struggles.
Percy Chapman (nom) by Sarastro1. Chapman (1900–1961) was an English cricketer. Regarded as one of the best of his contemporaries during his school and university days, being named one of Wisden's schoolboy Cricketers of the Year in 1919. He captained the England cricket team between 1926 and 1931, winning won his first nine matches before going into a downspiral of alcoholism and poor tactical strategies. By the time of his death Chapman was regarded as an embarrassment to cricket.
Istanbul (nom) by Tariqabjotu. Istanbul is the largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. Its population of 13.5 million is spread 5,343 square kilometers (2,063 sq mi), with parts in Europe and parts in Asia. It is a popular tourist destination, partly because of the city's more than 2,000 years of history, including periods of Roman and Muslim influence.
Betelgeuse (nom) by Casliber and Sadalsuud. Betelgeuse is the eighth brightest star in the night sky and second brightest in the constellation of Orion. A red supergiant, is one of the largest and most luminous known stars. It is 640 light-years from Earth and only 10 million years old, having evolved quickly owing to its size. The star's name is thought to be derived from Arabic.
"Gender Bender" (The X-Files) (nom) by Grapple X. "Gender Bender" is the fourteenth episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It follows FBI agents Mulder and Scully investigating a series of murders following sexual encounters, ultimately revealed to be perpetrated by Amish-like aliens. The writers found it difficult to write a story that showed sex as scary, and the episode has been met with mixed critical responses.
Franz Kafka (nom) by PumpkinSky and Gerda Arendt. Kafka (1883–1924) was an influential German-language writer of novels and short stories, regarded by critics as one of the greatest authors of the 20th century. Kafka wrote in his spare time, considering it his calling, but spent much of his time handling insurance. His writings, which he wanted to be destroyed, are filled with alienation, physical and psychological brutality, parent-child conflict, and mystical transformations.
New Worlds (magazine) (nom) by Mike Christie and Nikkimaria. New Worlds was a British science fiction magazine that began as a fanzine in 1936. Between its first professional publication in 1946 and 1960, the magazine experienced a "Golden Age", first under John Carnell, then under a succession of editors. From the late 1960s until the magazine closed in 1970, New Worlds featured a good deal of experimental and avant-garde material.
Cyclone Rewa (nom) by Jason Rees. Rewa developed from a tropical disturbance on 28 December 1993 south of Nauru. It blew a path of destruction throughout the southern Pacific, affecting six countries and killing 22 people before dissipating on 23 January 1994. The cyclone reached Category 5 on the Australian scale; the name Rewa is now retired.

Featured lists

Three featured lists were promoted this week:

List of threatened fauna of Michigan (nom) by Dana boomer. Almost 400 animal species are considered endangered, threatened or of special concern in the US state of Michigan. These species have low or declining numbers in the state.
Lykke Li discography (nom) by Pancake. The Swedish singer-songwriter Lykke Li has released two studio albums, three extended plays, nine singles, and eight music videos. Li made her debut in 2007 with the EP Little Bit; her biggest success thus far is 2011's Wounded Rhymes.
List of schools in the Cardenal Caro Province (nom) by Diego Grez. The Chilean province of Cardenal Caro is home to 63 schools, serving 6,681 students. This includes only two semi-private schools; the rest are municipally run.

Featured pictures

One featured picture was promoted this week:

Eastern Phoebe (nom; related article), created by John Benson and nominated by Tomer T. The Eastern phoebe (Sayornis phoebe) is a small passerine bird from eastern North America. It often nests on human structures, such as bridges and buildings.

Featured portals

One featured portal was promoted this week:

New England (nom) by Achowat. New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of six states. The new portal includes 27 Selected Articles, 22 Selected Biographies, 20 Selected Pictures, and a DYK section.

Reader comments

If articles have been updated, you may need to refresh the single-page edition.

Make sure we cover what matters to you — leave a suggestion.

Home

About

Successful requests for adminship on the English Wikipedia
Month\Year	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	Totals
January		2	13	14	44	23	36	6	6	3	1
February		2	14	9	28	35	27	9	7	9	3
March		8	31	16	34	31	22	13	2	9	1
April		6	20	25	36	30	12	14	8	3	3
May		10	23	17	30	54	16	12	8	6	1
June	^[1]	24	13	28	28	35	18	12	6	4	1
July	3	11	17	31	26	31	16	10	7	4	6
August	4	9	12	39	26	18	12	11	13	1	4
September	0	17	29	32	22	34	6	8	6	4	0
October	0	10	16	67	27	27	16	7	7	3
November	3	9	27	41	33	56	11	13	4	2
December	1	15	25	68	19	34	9	6	1	4
Total promoted	44	123	240	387	353	408	201	121	75	52	20	2023
Total unsuccessful	n/a^[2]	n/a	63	213	543	512	392	234	155	87	48	2264
Total RfAs including by email	44	123	303	600	896	920	593	355	230	139	68	4274^[3]