Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2005-12-12
From the editor
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— Ral315
Media flurry leads to identifying writer of Seigenthaler "prank"
A week of heavy media coverage about Wikipedia, the complaint from John Seigenthaler Sr. (see archived story), and the experiment restricting "anonymous" article creation (see archived story), culminated in a New York Times story identifying the author of the article Seigenthaler complained about.
The shift in Wikipedia practices was covered by the Associated Press and widely reported as a result, but some outlets also provided their own reporting on these events. USA Today, where Seigenthaler wrote the piece that set the media in motion, published a new article, "It's online, but is it true?", bringing his story together with that of Adam Curry (see archived story) and exploring the reliability of information on Wikipedia and the Internet in general. CNET focused on Wikipedia repeatedly throughout the week, with articles that ranged from contrasting Wikipedia's editing system with the processes of open-source software, to reviewing some of the legal implications of the incident (law professors quoted here and elsewhere have suggested that Wikipedia is, like most internet service providers, largely immune from liability here).
Wikipedia on television, radio, and in newsrooms
The coverage extended beyond online and print stories to television and radio as well. Seigenthaler and Jimmy Wales appeared together twice, first Monday with Kyra Phillips on CNN's Live From... show, then Tuesday on NPR's Talk of the Nation. In addition, Wikipedia user David Gerard was interviewed on the BBC Radio 4 programme PM on Thursday, 8 December.
In his interviews, Seigenthaler repeated some of the concerns about Wikipedia that he first raised in USA Today, emphasizing the problem that offensive or defamatory material could be preserved in the article history. CNN host Phillips also criticized the article about her, saying it made her look like a "right-wing commie". The complaint naturally prompted a flurry of edits on this article as well as Seigenthaler's, which has been the focus of intense editing since his column first appeared.
Some stories last week, like one in The Times of London, drew heavily on the rewritten Seigenthaler article in providing biographical information about him. But at the same time, a New York Times editor told fact-checkers at the paper that they should stop using Wikipedia to verify information. On the Wikipedia side, the fact that this even needed to be said surprised a few, who noted the potential circularity in which a newspaper could verify facts in Wikipedia that the Wikipedia editors got from the newspaper in the first place. Meanwhile, The Times of London also ran an opinion piece harshly criticizing Wikipedia, and a letter to the editor defending it in response.
The culprit tracked down
Seigenthaler hinted on Talk of the Nation that some investigative reporter might still find out who was responsible for the false information originally posted about him. And as it turned out, Katharine Seelye reported in Sunday's New York Times that the entry had been traced to a man in Seigenthaler's home town of Nashville, Tennessee. Based on technical information provided by Daniel Brandt (a Wikipedia critic dissatisfied with the handling of his own article on Wikipedia), Seelye said that the culprit had been identified as Brian Chase, an operations manager with a company named Rush Delivery.
Chase, who reportedly resigned after this came to light, apparently had wanted to "shock a colleague with a joke" when he wrote the entry about Seigenthaler. Seelye indicated that Chase had now met with Seigenthaler and apologized, and as had already been indicated previously, Seigenthaler said he has no interest in suing Chase.
Straw poll continues
A chat with the elected Arbitrators
6 February 2006
Jimbo Wales appoints 11 arbitrators, increases committee size
23 January 2006
Arbitration Committee elections continue; ArbCom member resigns
16 January 2006
ArbCom candidates (part two)
9 January 2006
ArbCom candidates
2 January 2006
Straw poll closes
19 December 2005
Jimbo starts new poll regarding election
5 December 2005
Last chance to run for ArbCom
28 November 2005
ArbCom voting process
14 November 2005
ArbCom duties and requirements
7 November 2005
A closer look: the calls for reform of the ArbCom
31 October 2005
A look back: the 2004 ArbCom elections
24 October 2005
Current ArbCom members
17 October 2005
Criticism of the ArbCom
10 October 2005
About the Arbitration process
3 October 2005
The history of the Arbitration Committee
26 September 2005
Introduction to a special series: A look at the upcoming Arbitration Committee elections
19 September 2005
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A chat with the elected Arbitrators |
This week, no candidates either joined or withdrew from the race. Meanwhile, the straw poll set up by Jimbo Wales continued. As of press time, 22 people supported Jimbo's second proposal, 16 supported an open election, four for Talrias's proposal, and three for Jimbo's first proposal. In addition, two people indicated that they were unsure, and one Wikipedian expressed his feelings under the "Don't care" section.
It is uncertain when the straw poll will end and when elections will begin.
News and notes
Wikipedia traffic skyrockets
In the wake of the Seigenthaler dispute, Alexa reports that Wikipedia traffic has increased significantly. From 2 December to 11 December, Wikipedia's daily traffic rank had risen from 37th to 27th, passing such sites as Livedoor, craigslist, eBay UK, and CNN.com. ([1]) Wikipedia's page views per million rose from 1,000 to over 1,500, a 50% increase in traffic relative to other websites.
Fundraiser starts Friday
The next Wikimedia Foundation fundraising drive, which was originally slated to begin 1 December, will start on 16 December. The fundraiser will still last for three weeks, ending on 6 January. Although no specific goal has been set, Daniel Mayer, Wikimedia CFO indicated he hoped it could raise at least USD $500,000.
German Wikipedia sells DVD third edition
The German Wikipedia has issued a third edition DVD including updated articles. The DVD is license-compliant, and contains over 300,000 articles. In addition, a series of printed books are being sold. Both the DVD and the books are released under the GFDL, and are available for download.
Briefly
- The Finnish Wikipedia has reached 40,000 articles.
- The Belarusian Wikipedia has reached 2,000 articles.
- The Esperanto Wikipedia has reached 30,000 articles.
Features and admins
BD2412 shatters support record
BD2412 received an astonishing 183 support votes on his request for adminship. The previous record was Func, whose August RFA drew 112 support votes. Neither user was opposed.
Administrators
Fifteen users were granted admin status this week: Kbh3rd (nom), Gurubrahma (nom), Andrew Norman (nom), BD2412 (nom), WikiFanatic (nom), Thebainer (nom), Extreme Unction (nom), Awolf002 (nom), Luigi30 (nom), SCEhardt (nom), NSLE (nom), Pathoschild (nom), JWSchmidt (nom), TShilo12 (nom) and Lbmixpro (nom).
Featured content
Eight articles were featured this week: Butter, The Waterboys, Game theory, Voting system, Ido, Marilyn Manson, Early life of Joseph Smith, Jr. and Xanadu House, which was finally featured after four nominations.
The following featured articles were displayed last week on the main page as Today's featured article: Roy Orbison, Michel Foucault, Waterfall Gully, Mandan, Hugo Chávez, History of the Jews in Poland and Yuan.
Two lists reached featured list status this week: List of Presidents of Venezuela and List of London Underground stations.
Three pictures reached featured picture status this week:
Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
Last week in servers
Server-related events, problems, and changes included:
- 6 December - Special:Cite disabled on all sites except Wikipedia, Wikinews, and Wikiquote.
- 9 December - Changed Wikimedia homepage to an editable portal.
- 12 December - Restarted 'mint', which had been down for a few days.
- 13 December - IRC client restarted, allowing new channels on the Browne IRC server.
The Report On Lengthy Litigation
The Arbitration Committee closed two cases this week, brought against Rex071404 and Pigsonthewing.
Rex071404
A case against Rex071404 was closed on Tuesday. As a result, Rex071404 has been permanently banned from John Kerry. The Arbitrators also ruled that any administrator can block Rex071404 from any article if they rule that Rex071404's editing there is "problematic". Rex071404 was accused of trying to "own" the article on John Kerry. This is the fourth case brought against Rex071404; after the third, Rex071404 voluntarily left the site for 6 months.
Pigsonthewing
A case brought against Pigsonthewing was closed on Friday. As a result, Pigsonthewing was banned for one day, placed on indefinite probation, and placed on a one-revert per article per week limitation for a period of one year. Pigsonthewing was accused of "stirring up trouble", and getting into lengthy revert wars on numerous articles. Additionally, Karmafist, an administrator involved in the dispute, was prohibited from "any administrator activity" against Pigsonthewing.
Other cases
A case was accepted this week against Gibraltarian (user page). It is in the evidence phase.
Other cases against Carl Hewitt (user page), voters on webcomics AFDs, Reddi (user page), EffK (user page), editors on climate change-related articles, numerous editors on Neuro-linguistic programming, Johnski (user page), a series of editors on Winter Soldier, Xed (user page), and Copperchair (user page) are in the evidence phase.
Cases against AndriyK (user page), Fuelwagon and Ed Poor, editors Ted Wilkes, Wyss, and Onefortyone, numerous editors on Ted Kennedy, Rangerdude (user page), numerous editors on Political Research Associates, and Ultramarine are in the voting phase.