LiquidThreads in Beta
LiquidThreads is a next-generation discussion system for MediaWiki, which turns talk pages into a real forum, while maintaining the essential aspects of a wiki that make them so effective. It was originally developed as a Google Summer of Code project by David McCabe, and I've spent the last 4 months preparing it for deployment on Wikimedia sites, under contract from the Foundation.
The most significant feature of the extension—and the one that gives it its name—is the thread-oriented discussion format, shown in screenshot #1. Rather than simply indenting replies, as is currently done on talk pages, LiquidThreads gives editors the ability to "reply" to a particular post in a thread, and automatically places the resulting comment in the correct position within the thread. LiquidThreads support a number of additional features familiar to users of forum software; for example, a button allows one to "quote" another editor's post, and editors may insert a "summary" section for a thread to generate a record of the discussion for future readers.
The implementation of threads on a talk page as conceptual threads—rather than sections—makes a number of additional features possible. The most noticeable of these is the new thread summary listing, which acts as a replacement for the traditional table of contents on discussion pages using the extension. An example thread listing is shown in screenshot #2.
The listing not only provides links to the threads themselves—as the table of contents would—but also includes more forum-like statistics, tracking the editor who started the thread, the number of posts to it, and the time of the most recent modification. The list of threads may be sorted according to the modification time, starting at either earliest or latest; a number of additional sorting methods—notably, a way to sort by thread activity—have already been requested.
With the new listing, LiquidThreads removes the need for manual archiving of old discussions; as threads age and become inactive, they will move out of the first page of the listing (which, by default, is configured to only show the twenty most recent threads), while at the same time remaining easily accessible for future reference.
Underneath the reader-facing form of a single discussion page, individual threads—and even individual posts within threads—are implemented as distinct subpages, allowing more fine-grained control over them. One major feature which relies on this control is the availability of a thread-level watch: users can choose to watchlist individual threads of interest, rather than entire discussion pages. This is expected to be immediately useful on high-traffic pages such as noticeboards, where users may only be interested in a small subset of ongoing discussion.
When a user adds an individual thread to their watchlist, future posts to that thread trigger a "new messages" prompt for the user, leading them to a screen where they are given the opportunity to read and acknowledge the new posts (screenshot #3). Posts can be marked as read on a per-thread level, allowing users to leave threads that require replies "unread"; this causes the system to continue generating a prompt to serve as a reminder to the user.
Further testing of the extension is expected to continue for some time, and the developers are eager to receive feedback on the extension's features.
Reader comments
Law affair
This week saw scandal erupting around the Arbitration Committee after administrator Law was revealed to be a sockpuppet of the_undertow—a sockpuppet apparently operated with the knowledge of numerous administrators and of at least one member of the Committee.
Arbitration requested
Administrator Sandstein had, on 20 September, filed a request for arbitration regarding Law's unblock of ChildofMidnight, whom Sandstein had blocked under the provisions of the Obama articles arbitration decision. At first, there was no indication that the case was anything more than a routine dispute between two administrators—albeit not a particularly complex one, as the Arbitration Committee appeared to be moving towards dealing with the matter by a summary motion instead of a full case.
On 30 September, however, the case suddenly took a bizarre turn, as arbitrator Risker blocked Law indefinitely and posted a motion that stated:By the end of the day, ten arbitrators had voted in favor of the motion.The Arbitration Committee has been informed that Law (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) is an alternate account of The undertow (talk · contribs), and this has been confirmed with the user involved. User:Law has now resigned his administrator tools.[1] At the time that the User:Law account was created, User:The undertow was subject to an Arbitration Committee ban.
The Arbitration Committee notes the resignation of administrator tools by Law (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), and further notes that this resignation is under controversial circumstances. The user is restricted to one account, The undertow (talk · contribs). He is required to notify the Arbitration Committee in advance should he wish to change usernames or create a new account, in accordance with Arbitration Committee enforcement procedures initiated in June 2009.
Casliber resigns
I did know that Law was the undertow for several months...
I first got to know the Undertow before the time which saw his editing privileges revoked for 9 months. He was having a rough patch and I talked to him a few times and he picked up and felt better afterwards and was very grateful. I didn't hear from him for some time until he popped up and told me about the Law account. He told me that the issues which had resulted in the ban had been settled.
After this, I tried to persuade him several times to come clean which he deliberated on (as I figured this was the least dramatic way of dealing with the issue). He was at several stages going to retire the Law account, frequently enough for me to desist from pursuing it (combined with a large number of arb-related, wikipedia-related and RL-related issues keeping me very busy). I became aware of the successful RfA and was unhappy about it, and continued talking to him off and on about how to come clean. For the most part, his editing has been very productive. Once the issue with the unblock of Sandstein's block of ChildofMidnight arose, I realised I was put in a spot and confessed to the committee a day ago, after the committee became alerted to the identities by another incident.
Yes, this was a bad decision on my part and I apologise...
Early the next day, Casliber resigned from the Committee—a move which garnered equal parts approval and regret from the community. "We are none of us perfect, and we all make mistakes, but the good that we do when we do it, and the good advice we give, and the strangers we have helped, are our silent memorials. You have also these last few hours provided a few drops of dignity in what appears to be a murky matter, no matter what accusations regarding failings of character have been made..." wrote administrator LessHeard vanU, echoing the feelings of many other editors.
Who knew?
The focus of the discussion had meanwhile turned to the question of who, exactly, had known of Law's previous identity. The investigation turned quickly to the administrators who had taken part in Law's request for adminship, and allegations were made that they had colluded to deceive the community regarding the identity of the nominee.
Administrator GlassCobra, who had nominated Law, was unapologetic:Another of the involved administrators, Jennavecia, was even more blunt:Yes, I was aware that The_undertow and Law are the same person... I did purposefully leave out any mention of The_undertow in his RfA nomination; I wanted editors to judge him solely by his actions and edits as Law. I would also like to reaffirm my trust in this editor and call attention to his overwhelmingly positive track record as Law; he has written quality articles, collaborated peacefully with other editors, and used the tools in a manner that is a net positive to this project. It is unfortunate that his identity was revealed this way, and I take this opportunity to note my extreme displeasure with the actions and behavior of the other editors involved in leaking the information... It is quite a mystery to me why this particular instance seems to be generating such a dramastorm.
Meanwhile, arbitrator John Vandenberg posted an apology of his own, writing:He's my best friend. Big deal. I trust him. That's why I supported him. I don't care if he broke a rule on a website... I'll always have his back no matter what, because we're friends regardless of what's going on with Wikipedia. I would never put a website before a friendship. And I would never not get his back because I'm an admin. If you don't trust me with my tools, recall me, but I won't be admonished for supporting my best friend.
The statement caused a flurry of speculation regarding the identity of the functionary, and the reason why he had written to John, which continued until Keegan identified himself as the editor in question. It then emerged that another functionary had, in fact, used the oversight tool to remove posts identifying Law as the_undertow; arbitrator FloNight, speaking on behalf of the Audit Subcommittee, noted that they would be "reviewing the situation according to our usual practices".It was brought to my attention this morning, about 9 hours ago, that a functionary had privately informed me on August 21 about the connection between Law and The undertow... My apologies for adding to the recent confusion, especially to the functionary who believed that they had elevated the matter to the committee appropriately. I dropped the ball, and didn't go back to pick it up once I had more time on my hands.
More arbitration requested
Late on 1 October, administrator Jehochman filed a new request for arbitration, calling on the Arbitration Committee to remove the administrator status of those administrators who had knowingly supported Law's own request for adminship. Over the next few days, nearly sixty editors had commented on the request, variously supporting it, opposing it, arguing over whether the Committee was empowered to act on it, suggesting that the administrators in question be recalled, or commenting on a variety of tangential matters. As yet, only Carcharoth has voted on whether to accept the request, although a number of other arbitrators have either recused themselves or posted comments.
On 3 October, Jehochman filed a second request, asking that the first request be heard in an irregular manner—as a collection of requests for comments rather than a normal case. Arbitrator response has been underwhelming.
Policy and codes of conduct
Other editors, meanwhile, have taken the opportunity to pursue a number of policy reform proposals. The most prominent of these, the Arbitration Committee code of conduct, was proposed by administrator SlimVirgin. Among other clauses, the proposed code would include provisions requiring arbitrators to report any "serious violation of policy" or "any violation of the Committee's sanctions" to the rest of the Committee.
At the same time, the matter has renewed interest in the draft arbitration policy that was published for community comment by the Committee earlier this year. Little work on the draft has been done since the second version was released in late June; now, a number of editors have suggested that the Committee is too busy with other tasks to make further progress, and that the community must see to the future development of the policy on its own. Debate over these issues, as well as over the substance of the policy, continues unabated.
Reader comments
Article Incubator, Wikipedians take Manhattan, new features in testing, and much more
Article Incubator launches
Wikipedia:Article Incubator, a space for the development of new articles with potential, has been launched by User:Fritzpoll and User:GTBacchus. The aim of the incubator is to save articles from deletion if they show the potential to meet Wikipedia standards. It is suggested as a better solution than userfication as it allows collaborative editing and improvement to continue, and avoids issues over ownership where there are multiple contributors.
User:Fritzpoll says: "We have two major problems around good-faith new articles that aren't up to our standards: the need to get them out of the mainspace and the desire not to bite new editors. The Article Incubator should help with both and we'll take articles from any venue where it is deemed appropriate: CSD, PROD, AfD, AfC, etc." The project is currently looking for more editors to help develop incubated articles.
Wikipedians take Manhattan
Wikipedia Takes Manhattan is a planned scavenger hunt and free content photography contest coordinated with Columbia University and New York University students and The Open Planning Project, aimed at illustrating Wikipedia and Streetswiki articles covering the wondrous sights of the isle of Manhattan, and all across the Five Boroughs of New York City.
Scheduled for Saturday, 10 October 2009, this event will be a sequel to last spring's Wikipedia Takes Manhattan (WTM-1) and last fall's Wikis Take Manhattan (WTM-2) event. Participants may register their team here.
Liquid threads test goes live
On Friday, Wikimedia contract developer Andrew Garrett announced an open beta test of David McCabe's LiquidThreads extension, described as "a next-generation discussion system for MediaWiki". The extension, originally developed as a Google Summer of Code project, replaces talk pages with a full-featured forum system, facilitating more organised and effective discussion.
New usability features released
The second release of features from the Wikimedia usability team was released this week, codenamed Babaco. The features enhance the editing window and editing toolbar, and can be enabled through User preferences, by going to the 'Editing' tab and selecting 'Experimental features.'
Portraits from Commons used in official Nobel Prize announcement
In today's online announcement of the winners of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the Nobel Prize committee used free photos from Wikimedia Commons to depict two of the three prize winners, Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol W. Greider. The captions mention the "Attribution Share Alike 3.0" license and duly credit the photos to "Gerbil", a user on Commons and the German Wikipedia who took them in March 2009 at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany.
German Arbcom dissolves
Since last week the second largest Wikipedia has been left without a central institution for conflict resolution, after seven members of the arbitration committee ("Schiedsgericht") resigned at once, leaving only two active arbitrators, below the minimum of five. The resignation statements cited multiple reasons, among them internal conflicts, lack of a clear mandate in certain matters, and lack of authority within the community. The German Wikipedia had introduced an ArbCom in April 2007, at a time when such an institution already existed on ten other Wikimedia projects (some of which were consulted about their experiences). Discussion is ongoing, with many users opining that electing new arbitrators won't be enough to solve the problem and that some sort of reform is needed. In April 2009, the Spanish Wikipedia voted to abolish its ArbCom ("Comité de Resolución de Conflictos") altogether.
Briefly
- A transcript of this week's staff office hours chat with Rand Montoya, WMF Head of Community Giving, is now posted. Montoya answered questions regarding the economic downturn, improving the geographic tracking of donations, and the impending 2 November launch of the Annual Fundraiser.
- Liam Wyatt of the Wikipedia Weekly podcast has posted the first part of a farewell interview with outgoing Chief Technology Officer Brion Vibber. (See also last week's coverage in the Signpost)
- Wikimedia XML data dumps are now part of the Amazon Web Services Public Data Sets.
- Strategic planning IRC office hours will be held this week from 04:00 to 05:00 UTC on Wednesday 7 October.
- Wikizine #119 has been posted.
Milestones
- The Armenian Wikipedia has reached 5,000 articles.
- The Serbian Wikinews has reached 15,000 news reports, overtaking the English Wikinews to become the largest Wikinews version (by number of articles).
This week in history
- 3 October 2005: Speedy deletion of copyright violations approved
- 3 October 2005: The English Wikipedia reaches 750,000 articles
- 1 October 2007: RSS feed for RecentChanges added to all pages
Reader comments
Wikipedia used by UN, strange AFDs, iPhone reality
Wikipedia graph used in UN climate report
As first reported on the blog ClimateAudit.org, a graph in the United Nations report Climate Change Science Compendium 2009 originated on Wikipedia. The file, which shows atmospheric CO2 and mean global temperature during the past 1000 years, was drawn by Norwegian Wikipedian Hanno. Several other blogs picked up the story, including the blog talkingabouttheweather.com, which quotes an email from user:Hanno pointing out that he has no qualifications "to judge whether the underlying data are correct or erroneous, and have never pretended to be able to do so." Hanno further explained his point of view at commons:File talk:CO2-Temp.png.
The Telegraph on article deletion
A story in The Daily Telegraph on 1 October, "Wikipedia: 20 articles earmarked for deletion", highlighted some of the more unusual articles to go through AfD recently. Articles mentioned include Matrix (fictional universe), Raptor Jesus and exploding sheep, toads and donkeys.
Two iPhone apps use Wikipedia content for "augmented reality"
Two augmented reality apps for the iPhone were released this week that use Wikipedia content to provide information about a user's surroundings. ReadWriteWeb reviews Cyclopedia, a new app that costs US$2, and Wikitude, a free app that was previously available for Android phones. According to the ReadWriteWeb article, both applications require the newest iPhone, the 3GS:
| “ | That's because the 3GS is the first iPhone with an internal compass—Augmented Reality (AR) apps use your phone's GPS to know where you are and the compass to know which direction you're looking at. Then these two apps can tell you what you're looking at that's written up in Wikipedia. | ” |
Among others, William Beutler of The Wikipedian also reviews Wikitude.
Reader comments
Discussion Reports and Miscellaneous Articulations
The following is a brief overview of new discussions taking place on the English Wikipedia. For older, yet possibly active, discussions please see last week's edition.
A pair of odd socks
It is possible that the long-running saga of User:Jack Merridew/Blood and Roses is over, at least temporarily. As reported previously, User:Erik9 had nominated the user page for violating the policy on non-free content. Although there seemed to be no consensus on the matter, the debate continued at deletion review and a request for comment, before a second nomination of the user page was made.
It was during this debate that User:Cool Hand Luke posted to the administrators noticeboard the belief that the account was a sock puppet of User:John254. Erik9 was indefinitely blocked on 22 September by User:MZMcBride, and Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Jack Merridew/Blood and Roses (second nomination) was closed as no consensus on 29 September by User:Cirt. User:Jack Merridew, itself a sock puppet account, offered a smile and a wink to Erik9: "bye, Erik ;)" [2] and this pair of comments.
Are you allowed to sport that logo?
At the Village Pump, User:Hammersoft has requested comment on two issues related to trademarks:
Should icons of trademarks be permitted in infoboxes or should they only be displayed in their full size?
Should trademarks of a subsidiary organization of a parent organization be displayed in the infobox of a parent organization's article?
User:Andrwsc felt the questions raised a gap in Wikipedia's policies: "What is missing is a clear policy about the use of trademarked logos in general". User:Postdlf noted that "Wikipedia content by its very nature only uses trademarks nominatively—to identify a trademarked product or service or the trademark holder. This is not trademark infringement, and in fact it is something even competing commercial companies can do legally, as in comparative advertising." User:Mr.Z-man felt that "All that matters is that the primary logo in the infobox is the primary logo of the school, not the logo of some specific department or section."
Are your socks a secret?
User:SlimVirgin requested clarification over the privacy section of Wikipedia:Sock puppetry. SlimVirgin felt the section as written would "allow people to create alternate accounts for the express purpose of editing in controversial areas", something which would conflict with '"avoiding scrutiny" prohibition'. SlimVirgin proposed instead that the section read:
Privacy: An editor may create an alternate account to edit articles that might serve to identify him; for example, he might want to edit articles about his home town or about an unusual hobby he's associated with in real life.
However, User:Abductive failed to see an issue: "Whatever this incident with socking by The Undertow has done to Wikipedia, putting in place an toothless statement against privacy is not the solution." User:Ottava Rima felt the solution was simple: "One user, one account." After User:Risker pointed out "There are real issues with criminalising good behaviour" SlimVirgin conceded that "There's clearly no consensus to jiggle with the privacy provision, so I won't push it."
Pulled down by the undertow
Main story: Sockpuppet scandal
This week saw scandal erupting around the Arbitration Committee after administrator Law was revealed to be a sockpuppet of the_undertow—a sockpuppet apparently operated with the knowledge of numerous administrators and of at least one member of the Committee.
Polling
A round up of polls spotted by your writer in the last seven days or so, bearing in mind of course that voting is evil. You can suggest a poll for inclusion, preferably including details as to how the poll will be closed and implemented, either on the tip line or by directly editing the next issue.
- User:Shoemaker's Holiday has initiated a poll at What Wikipedia is not as to whether to change the wording of "A concise plot summary is sometimes appropriate as part of the larger coverage of a fictional work." The poll "seek[s] a temporary consensus to change" sometimes appropriate so that it instead reads usually appropriate. No conditions or time-line have been set for closing the poll.
- Wikipedia:Mosnum/proposal on YYYY-MM-DD numerical dates is apparently not a poll. However people are supporting or opposing a proposal to amend WP:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) so that YYYY-MM-DD style dates (1976-05-31) are not allowed in footnotes. Currently the Manual of Style guides against only their use in sentences.
- User:Chillum has instigated a poll after discussion at Wikipedia talk:Sock puppetry as to whether users should be required to declare their alternate accounts to an authority such as a checkuser or arbcom?
Deletion round-up
Your writer has trawled the deletion debates opened and closed in the last week and presents these debates for your edification. Either they generated larger than average response, centred on policy in an illuminating way, or otherwise just jumped out as of interest. Feel free to suggest interesting deletion debates for future editions here.
Soviet-run peace movements in the West has been re-nominated after a listing at deletion review. The previous debate, closed on 19 July, was believed to have been biased by "off-site canvassing on a secret mailing list", while the closer of the first discussion, User:Pastor Theo, was "later determined to be a sockpuppet of a banned user". The second nomination is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Soviet-run peace movements in the West. User:Crotalus horridus contends that the article is "a clear violation of synthesis, not to mention [the] neutral point of view" policy.
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bullshido.net (3rd nomination) has been listed at deletion review. As reported last week, the article was re-nominated at AFD roughly ninety minutes after the previous debate had closed. This re-nomination was closed by User:NuclearWarfare as no consensus on 2 October. Article nominator User:Cunard lodged the review later that day, expressing the opinion that "no reliable sources were found to establish the notability of this website". NuclearWarfare is happy for "the DRV community to decide" the outcome.
Articles
- Is Predatory fish the same article as Predator fish, or are they different and therefore they should both be in Wikipedia? Discuss
- Is Boycott Scotland a "non neutral website" whose notability is based "on 24-48 hours worth of media jumping on the bandwagon"? Discuss here
- Mass nomination: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gillabhrenainn Ua hAnradhain sees thirty-eight articles nominated for deletion by User:Lampman who says there is "nothing in these articles that could not be represented much better in a list."
- The notability of Patricia Aakhus, Randall V. Mills, Russell Blaylock, Free alternatives to proprietary software, BitchX, Alianore de Lovayne, Todd Bardwick, Bee Money, Abkhazia–Venezuela relations, PIRCH, Bonus round and Rumor website parody of Glenn Beck has been questioned and is proving contentious in the relevant deletion debates
- This week's too long didn't read award goes to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hispanic Day
- Have you heard of the Raptor Jesus meme?
- Bad smell award: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Herb usage 2 has been open since 12 September, having been relisted by three separate administrators. A further re-listing looks unlikely to your writer
Categories and templates
- Should we merge Category:List of rivers of the United States to Category:Lists of rivers of the United States?
- Is Category:Places historically in Berkshire over-categorisation?
- Should we remove "genre" from the name of Category:Western (genre) films and its subcategories? Discuss
- Should we have templates like {{Latest stable software release/rxIRC}} for tracking non-notable software? Discuss
Administrative notices round-up
- A discussion at the administrators noticeboard was initiated by User:MZMcBride, who wanted to know if there would be an "issue lifting some ancient indefinite protections placed on talk pages?" MZMcBride has compiled a list of such pages at Wikipedia:Database reports/Indefinitely fully-protected talk pages. The only real concerns expressed were that administrators should not "unprotect them blindly, [since] there needs to be someone to recognize when an ancient protection is there for a very good reason".
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Administrator has been created "to address the role of administrators and editors by consolidating efforts to address relevant issues". Your writer has signed up.
- User:Shivlingam was blocked for socking and generally being a nuisance after it transpired they had awarded them-self every possible barnstar. (See Abuse of barnstars / possible sockpuppetry)
- User:WebHamster was indefinitely blocked for breaching the policy on Living people's biographies. (See Richard Gere and the gerbil)
Briefly
- User:SlimVirgin has proposed Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee code of conduct
- User:Ched Davis has proposed Wikipedia:Administrator Code of Conduct
- Wikipedia:Vetting process has been tagged as being a new idea. The idea is that "experienced editors are invited to propose possible {administrator] candidates for vetting", in part to "prevent the RfA process from being quite so toxic"
- Should the Manual of Style guide against the term "and/or" while using it quite prolifically within its own guidance? Discussion at And/or
- It is proposed to merge a number of separate naming conventions back into Wikipedia:Naming conventions at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions#Merge. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (adjectives) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (verbs) have already been merged back to the main page
Missed
- User:Crusio has proposed Wikipedia:Notability (academic journals)
- User:Balloonman has proposed Wikipedia:Adminship coaching with tools RfA reform proposal
Requests for comment
Thirty Requests for comment have been made in the week of 28 September – 4 October:
- Talk:Sarah Palin 4 October 2009
- Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/new users 4 October 2009
- Talk:Use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport 4 October 2009
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style 3 October 2009
- Talk:Mark David Chapman 3 October 2009
- Talk:Stewie Griffin 2 October 2009
- Talk:1421: The Year China Discovered the World 2 October 2009
- Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) 2 October 2009
- Wikipedia talk:Red link 2 October 2009
- Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not 1 October 2009
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (writing about fiction) 1 October 2009
- Talk:Anjelica Huston 1 October 2009
- Talk:St. Johns, Arizona 1 October 2009
- Talk:Providence, Rhode Island 1 October 2009
- Talk:Chuck Grassley 1 October 2009
- Talk:Office Open XML 1 October 2009
- Talk:Manulife Financial 1 October 2009
- Talk:Nortom 30 September 2009
- Talk:War of the Pacific 30 September 2009
- User talk:UBX/MLB-Phillies 30 September 2009
- Wikipedia talk:Image use policy 30 September 2009
- Talk:Augusto Pinochet 30 September 2009
- Talk:Gaza War 29 September 2009
- Wikipedia:Mosnum/proposal on YYYY-MM-DD numerical dates 29 September 2009
- Wikipedia talk:Featured list criteria 29 September 2009
- Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (precision) 29 September 2009
- Talk:Fruit 28 September 2009
- Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Athletics 28 September 2009
Reader comments
New developments at the Military history WikiProject
Over the last few months, the Military history WikiProject ("MilHist") has launched several major new initiatives aimed at improving content within its scope, including the Academy, Operation Majestic Titan and Operation Great War Centennial. In addition, the WikiProject's semi-annual coordinator elections concluded with the promotion of TomStar81 to lead coordinator, the selection of a new coordinator tranche, and the granting of emeritus status to former lead coordinator Roger Davies.
Existing programs, meanwhile, have continued to enjoy considerable success, with the most prominent being the A-class review system. Statistics collected earlier this year showed that military history articles have a significantly higher chance of successful promotion to featured article status than the average article—a trend which is, in large part, related to the quality of MilHist's reviews.
Analysis by MBK004 shows that 70% of military history articles nominated as featured article candidates were promoted against an overall average of 51%, and that 84% of promoted articles had successfully passed an A-class review.
The Military history Academy
Created earlier this year, the Academy is MilHist's online training school, which gathers instructional essays and "how-to"s in a single, comprehensive structure. The Academy has already collected more than 50 courses on various topics, ranging from "Writing a good stub" to "How to prepare an A-class Review" to "Filing a Freedom of Information Request". The courses are not all related solely to military history, and all editors are invited to contribute on any subject that may interest them.
As part of an effort to fill the gaps in the Academy's coverage, MilHist launched an Academy content drive in July, offering awards to any editors who contribute to the Academy's courses. The drive is scheduled to run through the end of this month.
Operation Majestic Titan
To date, the most successful of the new special projects is Operation Majestic Titan. This initiative aims to create the largest single featured topic on Wikipedia, centered around battleships and extending to battlecruisers and related armament and ship classes.
Majestic Titan was originally conceived in mid-summer as a personal project by TomStar81, who saw it as a natural extension of the work he was already doing on American battleship articles. Reflecting on his choice of name for the project, TomStar81 wrote:In Greek mythology, the elder gods were the Titans. Twelve of these beings ruled over the golden age before they were overthrown by the Olympian gods at the end of a ten-year war. After the titans were defeated they met a variety of ends; most were cast out and imprisoned. A lucky few had the fortune to survive this fate, and would serve in limited capacities for the Olympian gods during their rein as the supreme beings. For all this though, the titans - although defeated - remained a force of contention, having left their mark on ancient Greek society and earning for themselves a place in the modern study of ancient history.
In much the same way these battleships also shared a similar story. Battleships were the undeniable gods of seaborne warfare in the late 19th and early to mid 20th century until their reign was savagely cut short by the rise of the aircraft carrier during the Second World War. Having established themselves as the new gods of seaborne warfare, these carriers banished the battleships first into reserve, then to the scrapyards, but a precious few managed to escape. Four were overhauled and served in the 1980s and 90s; only nine still exist today, as floating museums. Although they no longer exist as a powerful force, battleships have certainly left their mark on the world, and today still inspire awe among the public.
Over the next months, a number of other editors—including Climie.ca, MBK004, Parsecboy and The_ed17—joined the effort, and the target list grew to several hundred articles. With the organizational overhead of the project growing, it was decided to formally inaugurate it as a MilHist special project, a task that was completed last month.
Majestic Titan currently has 25 featured articles, 14 A-class articles, 24 good articles, 2 featured topics, and one good topic under its scope—more than most entire WikiProjects! Any editor who wishes to help in this endeavor is invited to join; any sort of help whatsoever would be greatly appreciated. In particular, copyeditors are needed to polish the text as the articles are improved.
Operation Great War Centennial and the Henry Allingham contest
A longer-term special project is Operation Great War Centennial. The objective of this project is to bring all core topics related to World War I to featured status in preparation for the centenary of the war (2014–18).
Introducing the initiative, MilHist member The Land wrote:In June 2014 we will see the centenary of the start of World War I. This will doubtless be a mammoth commemoration of one of the most significant wars in history, attracting vast interest from schools, universities, veterans groups and the media. It offers us the chance to showcase what a brilliant resource Wikipedia is by producing a string of FA-quality articles covering all the most significant topics in World War I.
The project is currently in its early stages, but dozens of target topics have already been identified—many of them covered only by poor-quality articles, or not covered at all. The effort to improve them is expected to continue through the end of the centenary in 2018.
As an introduction to the effort, MilHist is planning to launch the Henry Allingham World War I contest, which will be a three-round competition to improve articles related to World War I. The contest, named to honor the late British supercentenarian and Great War veteran Henry Allingham, is scheduled to begin on 11 November—Armistice Day—and to run through February 2010.
Coordinator elections
Last month, MilHist's semi-annual coordinator elections were held, resulting in the promotion of TomStar81 to lead coordinator, the reelection of eleven coordinators, the addition of three new coordinators, and the granting of emeritus status to former lead coordinator Roger Davies. TomStar81 becomes MilHist's third lead coordinator since the system was instituted in February 2006.
The coordinators are primarily responsible for the maintenance and housekeeping work involved in keeping the WikiProject and its internal processes running smoothly; this includes a variety of tasks, such as keeping the announcement and open task lists updated, overseeing the assessment and review processes, managing the proposal and creation of task forces, and so forth. The coordinators also serve as designated points of contact, and have informal roles in leading the drafting of military history guidelines, overseeing the implementation of decisions on issues like category schemes and template use, and helping to resolve disputes and keep discussions from becoming heated and unproductive.
Editors interested in running for this position in the future are encouraged to join MilHist and assist with internal processes in some way, such as by performing assessments, responding to queries raised on the talk page, or reviewing articles nominated for an A-class rating.
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Approved this week
Administrators
One editor was granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: Abecedare (nom).
Featured pages
Fifteen articles were promoted to featured status this week: Hurricane Grace (1991) (nom), History of the Montreal Canadiens (nom), Columbia River (nom), Simon Bolivar Buckner (nom), Moors murders (nom), Barbara L (nom), Battle of the Alamo (nom), Star Trek: First Contact (nom), Otto Julius Zobel (nom), Rhodotus (nom), Jackie Robinson (nom), Virginia (nom), First Roumanian-American congregation (nom), Brian Booth (nom) and Tragic Kingdom (nom).
No lists were promoted to featured status this week.
No topics were promoted to featured status this week.
No portals were promoted to featured status this week.
The following featured articles were displayed on the Main Page as Today's featured article this week: Vauxhall Bridge, Texas A&M University, Byzantine navy, The Slave Community, Chinese classifier, Murray Chotiner and Virus.
Former featured pages
One article was delisted this week: Invasion of Poland (1939) (nom).
No lists were delisted this week.
No topics were delisted this week.
Featured media
The following featured pictures were displayed on the Main Page as picture of the day this week: Ischnura heterosticta, Werdau townhall, Sprekelia formosissima, American Empire as depicted on Puck, Map of Germany, Ross Bridge and A Currier and Ives print of Brooklyn in 1879.
Five featured sounds were promoted this week:
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| Stars and Stripes Forever | (nom) |
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| Charles A. Zimmerman - Anchors Aweigh | (nom) |
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| I. Allegro assai |
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| II. Tempo di minuetto, ma molto moderato e grazioso |
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| III. Allegro vivace |
Three featured pictures were demoted this week: Plunging bronco, Bar Diamond Bar range (nom), Rolling Thunder Cloud (nom) and Red sunset (nom).
Fifteen pictures were promoted to featured status this week and are shown below.
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Valetta, capital of Malta -
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Princess of Wales Conservatory, Kew Gardens -
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Grant from West Point to Appomattox -
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Westertoren, Amsterdam -
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Diagram of the New York City Subway -
Lactarius indigo gills -
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Extermination of Evil Tenkeisei -
Bengalia sp. blow fly in Bangalore -
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The Report on Lengthy Litigation
The Arbitration Committee did not open any cases this week, and closed one, leaving four cases open.
A number of arbitration requests and motions related to the Law affair took place this week; for details, see the full story.
Requests for arbitration
An arbitration request concerning disputes on the "quantum mysticism" article was filed by Lightbound, who alleges that the article suffers from "a history of edit wars and conflicts". The Committee has not yet determined whether the case will be heard.
An arbitration request concerning the conduct of Tcaudilllg was filed by rmcnew, who alleges that Tcaudilllg has engaged in edit-warring and personal attacks. Tcaudilllg has denied the allegations, calling them "ad hominem attacks on [his] character". The Committee appears to have accepted the case to examine the conduct of all involved editors.
An arbitration request concerning the conduct of several editors, filed by Linas, was rejected, as the Committee determined there was no substantive dispute to arbitrate.
Open cases
The Eastern European mailing list case has entered its third week of deliberations. The case concerns a set of leaked mailing list archives which are alleged to show an extensive history of collusion among numerous editors of Eastern European topics. Standard workshop procedures appear to have been suspended for the case, so normal drafting of proposals by the parties and other editors is not taking place; a draft decision is to be written by arbitrators Coren and Newyorkbrad, but no date for it has been announced.
The Asmahan case has also entered its third week of deliberations. The filing editor, Supreme Deliciousness, alleges that Arab Cowboy has engaged in a variety of disruptive behavior on the "Asmahan" article; Arab Cowboy denies the allegations, and claims that Supreme Deliciousness is pursuing a disruptive agenda of his own. No drafting of proposals has yet taken place; a draft decision is expected from arbitrator FayssalF by 18 October.
The Speed of light case has entered its fifth week of deliberations. The case was filed by Jehochman, who cited concerns about "tendentious editing and disruption" by a large number of editors on the "speed of light" article. Unusually, arbitrator Cool Hand Luke, who is slated to draft the decision in the case, has directly asked the parties "what resolution [they] would like to see from this process, and what (if any) concessions would [they] be willing to give to achieve that end?"; the parties have provided a set of varied responses to this. Workshop proposals have been made by a number of editors, including Cool Hand Luke and fellow arbitrator Vassyana. A draft decision in the case was expected by 30 September.
The Lapsed Pacifist 2 case has entered its seventh week of deliberations, as well as its second week of voting. The filing editor, Steve Crossin, alleges that Lapsed Pacifist has engaged in advocacy, original research, and edit warring, as well as various other improprieties, over a wide range of articles. A temporary injunction prohibits Lapsed Pacifist from editing articles related to the Corrib gas project for the duration of the case. The proposed decision, written by arbitrator Casliber, would place all articles related to the Corrib gas controversy and Shell to Sea under article probation, as well as imposing revert restrictions on Lapsed Pacifist and GainLine and issuing a series of admonishments and reminders. An alternative proposal by arbitrator Rlevse would ban Lapsed Pacifist from the topic area indefinitely.
Closed cases
The Noloop case has been dismissed. The case involved mutual allegations of disruptive conduct by several parties, chiefly Noloop (who had posted a statement that he did not intend to participate in the proceeding) and WebHamster (who was indefinitely blocked on 29 September, over a matter unrelated to the case); with the main parties thus absent, the Committee felt it pointless to continue the case.
Other announcements
The Committee announced that arbitrators Cool Hand Luke, Coren and Roger Davies would comprise the Ban Appeal Subcommittee for the month of October.
The Ban Appeal Subcommittee has requested community comments on appeals by Richard Relucio and Betacommand.
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Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
This is a summary of recent technology and site configuration changes that affect the English Wikipedia. Some bug fixes or new features described below have not yet gone live as of press time; the English Wikipedia is currently running version 1.44.0-wmf.1 (fbc8c4f), and changes to the software with a version number higher than that will not yet be active. Configuration changes and changes to interface messages, however, become active immediately.
Babaco release
The second usability release, Babaco, is now available on all Wikimedia projects for testing. The new release has three new features relating to the edit window. The new features can be enabled through your user preferences, under the "Editing" tab and then "Experimental features". The three features are:
- an enhanced editing toolbar
- help for adding advanced wiki text
- a navigable table of contents
The editing toolbar changes the layout of buttons, putting more advanced features in a dropdown menu, and adds a link to adding special characters and to a new help, which incorporates a brief, cheat-sheet style description of editing syntax into the dropdown menu. The navigable table of contents adds a right-hand side menu to the editing window, enabling you to jump to a new section of the article while editing it. Problems can be reported on the Babaco talk page.
Bots approved
One bot / bot task was approved in the past week:
- The Auto-categorizing Robot – To add district specific categories to NRHP-related articles by identifying the district from the infobox.
Bug fixes
- Search box no longer suggests unavailable special pages. (r57282, bug 20885)
- A "Create this page" link is no longer displayed when searching for a non-existent special page. (r57359, bug 20948)
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