Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2012-10-01

When was the first time paid editing came onto your radar? When you conceived of Wikipedia, did you ever imagine that editors would be financially compensated for their work, or that companies would employ people to influence articles?

From the beginning, it was something I thought we should pay attention to and prevent to the maximum extent possible. I remember the feeling of the Internet community – the appropriate cynicism – when Yahoo introduced a system whereby you could pay them for expedited review of your website for possible inclusion in their directory. Allegedly, such review would be neutral with no guarantees, but many people quite properly had doubts.

It was obvious even then that there are some people who are willing to act immorally.

You've been the most visible and strident promoter of the "bright line" rule prohibiting direct editing by paid editors. What influenced your thinking around this practice, and why do you think it is so important?

The "bright line" rule is simply that if you are a paid advocate, you should disclose your conflict of interest and never edit article space directly. You are free to enter into a dialogue with the community on talk pages, and to suggest edits or even complete new articles or versions of articles by posting them in your user space.

I've been an advocate of this because I think it makes a lot of complicated problems vanish completely. First, it avoids the sort of deep embarrassment and bad press for the client that has become common. Second, it answers the concerns that some people have about how to interact with Wikipedia as an advocate. It's almost impossible (assuming you behave in a polite manner) to get into trouble suggesting things on a talk page. And finally: it works. There are easy means to escalate issues if you are having a problem. There is simply no excuse for editing directly.

In my reading, WP:COI at least allows uncontroversial or minor changes, and at most permits any non-promotional edits, even major ones, although they are "strongly discouraged". From the 2009 paid editing RfC to the 2012 COI RfC, a direct prohibition of paid editing has failed to gain consensus. Yet you've described those who support or tolerate paid editing as an extreme minority. Do you agree that the bright line rule is not policy? If it's not, why do you think the community hasn't implemented it yet?

One of the biggest problems in this area is a lack of precision in talking about this. Even in your question, you say "paid editing" but that's much too broad and tends to confuse the issue quite badly. If a university decides to encourage their professors to edit Wikipedia as a public service as a part of their paid duties, that's a wonderful thing (so long as they steer clear of advocacy!). It's paid advocacy that we should be talking about.

I'm unaware of any serious arguments that we should welcome paid advocates into Wikipedia to edit articles about which they have a financial conflict of interest. (To be clear, there are a few people who argue in favor of that, but their arguments are so implausible that it is difficult to take them seriously.)

You've made a distinction between an employed academic versus a PR professional – the first editing in their free time in the area of their expertise and the second as a tainted advocate who shouldn't edit directly at all. Does 'advocacy' lie in the person (and their context) or only the person's behavior?

Both are relevant. If you're a PR professional editing on behalf of your client, then hiding behind the excuse that you're only making NPOV edits doesn't cut it with me at all. There's simply no reason to do that, when working with the community openly, honestly, and editing only talkpages is more effective.

The Public Relations Journal of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) published a report by Marcia DiStaso based on a survey of public relations professionals. That report stated that 60% of PR professionals said their clients' articles contained errors; this was more broadly used to claim that 60% of all articles contained errors. What did you think of that result, of the study, and of the attention it received?

It's useless nonsense that we should ignore completely.

The DiStaso study noted that when editors attempted to propose rather than directly make changes, responses were sometimes not received (in 25% of cases) and others took weeks or longer. Does promoting the bright line make it easier for PR professionals to blame Wikipedia for the errors they're presumably not allowed to correct? Would a fair or necessary corollary to the bright line be that Wikipedia should improve its responsiveness to PR editor suggestions and Template:edit request?

I think we should take seriously claims that PR professionals who try to do things the right way are ignored, and investigate every case that is put forward, but it's important to understand that those claims are largely false. One issue here is that PR professionals have not generally taken the time to escalate to the appropriate places.

Here's a standing offer: any PR professional who feels their concerns have not been addressed in the English Wikipedia should come and post to my user talk page. I will personally see to it. This idea that PR people have to edit Wikipedia article directly because they can't get a response any other way is sheer and total nonsense.

You started an FAQ page for your views on paid advocacy. What is the status of that page, and what are your hopes for it in terms of clarifying or influencing policy?

I expect that page will become the basis for a strict policy banning paid advocacy.

We assume good faith here. In what case is it appropriate to assume that a person, because they are paid of their job position, is out to spin rather than improve an article?

It doesn't matter, and this question is again the type of thinking that completely muddles the issue. The appearance of impropriety and the potential for scandal for the client is reason enough to avoid it.

I'm completely unpersuaded by arguments in either direction: that PR people are so evil that they will sneak around and edit if they are banned from doing so openly, or that PR people are so good that we should simply trust that they'll only want to be improving articles rather than spinning. Both of those positions are untenable, but more importantly, both those positions are absolutely irrelevant.

Have any paid or COI editors made positive contributions to the project?

I'm sure some have, but I fail to see any relevance to this question.

What do you think of collaborative efforts such as WikiProject Cooperation and Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement (CREWE)?

It's hard to have a simple opinion about complex and noisy community discussion areas. Basically, I can say that I'm happy for people to talk about it.

What role do you think PR organizations such as the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) can play in improving the relationship between their industry and Wikipedia?

They can put forward clear ethical standards for their member organizations that ban paid advocacy in Wikipedia article space. That should be the clear and overwhelming message from them. They should offer suggestions for the right way to work with the Wikipedia community. They should make it 100% clear that I'm personally committed to this issue and willing to address concerns directly on my user talk page!

CIPR has published a Draft of Best Practices for their members. I worked on the Plain and simple conflict-of-interest guide and presented a version of it to the PRSA as a talk called Learning to speak in Wikipedia's language". Do you think providing resources and education such as these for PR professionals is part of the solution? If so, how can we get those resources into the hands of the PR industry so that we close the knowledge gap?

I do think part of the solution is education. PR professionals need to know that "dark arts" are counter-productive and not in any way necessary. If we have an error, just talk to us about it, we'll fix it. If we don't have sufficient information, just provide it for us (well-written, NPOV, and on the talk page of the article), and we'll deal with it appropriately. This is not mysterious or difficult.

You spoke to employees at Bell Pottinger after their COI editing scandal. Did you treat them as people who suffered from ignorance or as people who had conducted themselves with malice. In other words, is the PR profession just not informed, or does it need moral guidance as well?

I'm a really nice person who assumes good faith. People sometimes do bad things, whether from ignorance or malice, and it is possible to forgive them. I found the staff members there to be contrite and apologetic.

On the other hand, Lord Bell himself made it very clear to me, in the meeting, that his grasp of the ethics of the situation is essentially zero. After hearing me explain what was done wrong, including Bell Pottinger employees lying about their identity, he said – in the meeting in front of his entire staff – he said that as far as he could tell they had done nothing wrong. If lying to people is not wrong in Lord Bell's world, well, I'm unable to respond except with astonishment. If I had worked there, I would have quit that day. If I were his client, I would have fired him. His attitude is disgusting and dangerous for his clients.

There seems to be a trend, or at least the emergence of one, of experienced editors beginning to offer their services and expertise, as Wikipedia 'consultants'. What do you think of that trend? Is it compatible with a neutral encyclopedia?

I don't think there is any such trend, at least not among good editors. And no, it's not compatible with a neutral encyclopedia.

You once described Wikipedia as a novel economic development where distributed communities of people with time, knowledge, and interest produce content that would otherwise be economically unfeasible. You have also described Wikipedia as a "cathedral of knowledge", a place free from the detritus of commercial motivations and advertising in particular. Do you think paid editors or even advocates can ever be welcome in that picture?

Of course, we can be welcoming to anyone. But it's important that those who have a financial conflict of interest avoid direct article editing at all times, and disclose fully.

In 10 years, what would it meant to you if there was an entire cottage industry of Wikipedia editors who were paid for their work? Do you think the encyclopedia could survive such a development?

It's difficult to answer such a hypothetical. It's so at odds with reality that it just isn't going to happen.

You've identified paid advocacy as a unique problem, but unpaid advocacy is also something the encyclopedia deals with regularly. The worst of those cases result in ArbCom cases, blocks, and bans. As the community has mechanisms to deal with unpaid advocacy, do you think paid editing or paid advocacy is more uniquely or severely a threat?

In many ways, it's less of a threat. The point is that it's a simple and cleanly identifiable threat, and there's a mutual interest in following the bright line rule: it's better for clients of PR firms, and it's better for Wikipedia.

WP:BLP policy has gone a long way towards recognizing and remedying the real harm that Wikipedia can do to living people. Is there an imbalance in the fact that we don't have a corresponding policy protecting corporations from real harm?

WP:BLP applies to corporations, which are just collections of people. I don't see any need for extending the policy, although I could be convinced if evidence were produced of an ongoing problem that an explicit extension would help solve.

One of the challenges of updating COI policy has been the difficulty of codifying who exactly is an advocate versus just an editor, and what types of edits are controversial versus benign. What are your thoughts on the task of making COI policy more detailed, concrete, and ultimately effective?

I don't think it is difficult at all, as long as we trash this concept that it is ok for people with a financial conflict of interest to make "benign" edits directly. That opens a huge can of worms in terms of determining which edits are benign. Best to not edit article space directly at all.

I think we can be relaxed about "emergency" situations – vandalism or severe BLP violations. Even those kinds of edits should be generally avoided by those with a COI – better to raise the alarm at BLPN or similar noticeboards (again, my user talk page is highly effective at getting the attention of good editors). But if someone with a COI makes an edit like that, we don't need to freak out.

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2012-10-01

Independent review of UK chapter governance; editor files motion against Wikitravel owners

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By Jan eissfeldt and Tony1

Independent review of WMUK governance and COI

Following considerable online and media reportage on the Gibraltar controversy and a Signpost report last week, the Wikimedia UK chapter and the foundation published a joint statement on September 28: "To better understand the facts and details of these allegations and to ensure that governance arrangements [are] commensurate with the standing of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia UK and the worldwide Wikimedia movement, Wikimedia UK’s trustees and the Wikimedia Foundation will jointly appoint an independent expert advisor to objectively review both Wikimedia UK’s governance arrangements and its handling of the conflict of interest."

Central to the debate have been Roger Bamkin's three simultaneous roles as English Wikipedia editor, WMUK trustee, and paid consultant for the innovative public projects MonmouthpediA, and more recently GibraltarpediA – projects that may have far-reaching benefits for the WMF movement, enabling on-the-spot access through mobile technology to the foundation's stored knowledge of locations of interest such as historical houses and monuments. The key to the innovation is the application of QRpedia QR code plaques (co-developed by Roger), which are installed at sites of interest under a trademark agreement with the foundation.

Roger declared his paid consultancy for Monmothpedia, in both his blog and candidature statements; nevertheless he was re-elected by the chapter's in May 2012 in the knowledge of his roles. He offered his resignation at least twice to the WMUK board to resign in relation to those declared conflicts. Questions related to English Wikipedia guidelines, especially those governing DYK, fall under the competence of the community and therefore will not be part of the review conducted by the advisor.

The organisations agreed that the WMF will take care of fundraising technicalities (processing) in the UK during the upcoming annual global fundraiser towards the end of the year. Under the new financial structure, this move has no direct consequences for the chapter's planned budget for the next fiscal year or for its five-year plan, and WMUK can apply for FDC funding. Thomas Dalton, the chapter's former treasurer, said this should be seen as an opportunity to broaden the chapter's financial basis and to become more financially independent of the WMF's annual campaign.

Editor files motion to strike Internet Brands' lawsuit

Three weeks ago, the Signpost reported that Ryan Holliday and James Heilman, both English Wikipedia and ex-Wikitravel.org volunteer editors, have been sued by Internet Brands, the owner of the Wikitravel trademark. The lawsuit, among other things, alleges that Holliday and Heilman engaged in a civil conspiracy, as a result of which the editors "have been unjustly enriched and Internet Brands has been injured and damaged".

With the support of Cooley LLP, the WMF's attorneys, Holliday filed a motion on 26 September to variously strike and dismiss IB's complaints, asking for costs to be awarded against IB. The motion describes the original lawsuit as "a meritless action brought not to win, but to intimidate, threaten, and ultimately silence persons engaged in speech that IB dislikes but the Constitution protects." The motion contains 23 pages of legal argument, in which more than 40 US court judgements are cited. The motion sets out why IB cannot in this instance make prima facie cases of common-law trademark infringement, unfair competition, or civil conspiracy; and it accuses the plaintiff, among other things, of stifling debate, of cherry-picking email texts in its lawsuit in a way that distorts their meanings, and of "bluster".

Holliday had already filed papers the week before to transfer the IB lawsuit from the LA County Superior Court to the federal US District Court for the Central District of California. The motion will be heard on 5 November by Judge Stephen V. Wilson. The trial date for the original lawsuit has not yet been set. The Signpost understands that proceedings would, if it became necessary, relate also to the interests of Heilman, the other named defendant in IB's lawsuit.

Kelly Kay, the foundation's deputy counsel, said "We fully agree with Ryan’s position, and we hope his motion is successful. We think community volunteers like Ryan deserve our thanks, not meritless lawsuits."

What to name the new WMF travel site

Since April 2012, the Wikimedia community has been discussing whether to set up a travel guide "sister" project. After the WMF board approved a formal proposal through an RfC last month, preparations have begun on Meta. Discussion is under way to settle the naming question. After a short initial straw poll established a need for wider consultation, the WMF designed a procedure to ensure open debate without making the process potentially subject to cybersquatting.

The community can vote on proposals that have been submitted according to proper process between 07:00 UTC October 2–16 to determine the name.

In brief

• English Wikipedia notes:
  • Arbitration report: The date delinking clarification request and Psychotherapies request for arbitration remain open from last week. There are also two new requests for arbitration: Professionalism and civility, stemming from an uncivil email exchange between two editors, and Protection reversion, concerning the indefinite protection of a user talk page and its subsequent removal.
  • Arbitration Committee election preparations: An all-encompassing Request for Comment (RfC) concerning the upcoming Arbcom election has been launched by MuZemike. The issues concern the composition of the committee, the election itself, and the minimum support percentage required at the end of the election.
  • Education Program restructure: An RfC has been opened to decide on if a new thematic organization should continue the work of the United States and Canada Education Programs.
  • Pending changes policy: The second in a series of informal requests for comment on pending changes has been opened at WP:PC2012/RfC 2. This RfC seeks to establish the reasons for which PC may applied to pages and the criteria reviewers may use in rejecting edits, as well as to answer several questions regarding automatic acceptance of edits and to determine the speed at which PC should be implemented.
  • Quarterly Update issued: the quarterly update, compiling the last three months of various modifications and alterations made to content policy pages, is complete.
• FDC applications: Applications for the inaugural round of funding from the Funds Dissemination Committee closed on 1 October. All applications can be reviewed openly on Meta. Community comments and queries are welcome on the talk pages. Applications have been received from the WMF, Argentina, Australia, Switzerland, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, the Philippines, Sweden, Hungary, and the UK. In related news, the WMF board passed a resolution appointing the FDC's members, following the announcement on Meta last month.
• California Digital Open Source Library established: On 27 September, the governor of California signed two bills to establish the California Digital Open Source Library and approve a project for the creation of 50 open-source digital textbooks under Creative Commons license.
• Ukrainian Wikipedia protest: The Ukrainian Wikipedia is now carrying a banner to protest a proposed law named "On Amendments to the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine on toughening punishments for the infringement of the honor, dignity and business reputation of a person" (translated from Ukrainian). Their English statement notes that the banner will remain until the bill is rejected, and they "reserve the right" to transition this to a full blackout if the law moves closer to passing.
• Toolserver funding: Debates over the status and funding of the Wikimedia Toolserver intensified last week as part of the review of the German chapter's annual plan review for 2013 on Meta. This week's tech report covers the issues in detail.
  
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2012-10-01

Mooned

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By Crisco 1492

This edition covers content promoted between 23 and 28 September 2012

Featured content

Five featured articles were promoted:

• Common toad (nom) by Cwmhiraeth. The common toad (Bufo bufo) is an amphibian found throughout most of Europe. An inconspicuous animal, it usually lies hidden during the day and comes out at night to hunt insects, slugs and earthworms, moving with a slow ungainly walk or short jumps. Primarily a solitary animal, in the breeding season large numbers converge on certain breeding ponds. The toad is listed as being of "Least Concern" by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
• Joseph Desha (nom) by Acdixon. Desha (1768–1842), of French Huguenot descent, grew up on the Tennessee frontier where two of his brothers were killed in Indian skirmishes, and fought Indians during the Northwest Indian War. First elected in 1807, he represented Kentucky six times in the U.S. House of Representatives and supported the War of 1812. In 1824, after the Panic of 1819 wrecked the Kentucky economy, he was elected governor on promises of debt relief.
• Hobey Baker (nom) by Kaiser matias. Baker (1892–1918) was an American amateur hockey and football player. Considered the first American star in ice hockey by the Hockey Hall of Fame, he was also a fine football player and a member of three national championship teams at Princeton University. After graduation, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in World War I. After receiving orders to return home in 1918, he volunteered for a last test flight and died when the plane crashed.
• Somerset County Cricket Club in 2009 (nom) by Harrias. During the 2009 English Cricket season, Somerset County Cricket Club competed in four domestic competitions. Although the season was successful and its consistent performances kept it in competition, the county did not win any championships. Somerset were captained by Justin Langer, while Marcus Trescothick topped the national batting tables.
• Corona Australis (nom) by Casliber and Keilana. Corona Australis, or "southern crown", is a constellation in the Southern Hemisphere, the counterpart of Corona Borealis, the northern crown. One of the 48 constellations listed by Ptolemy in the 2nd century, it remains a member of the 88 modern constellations and contains one of the closest star-forming regions to our Solar System. Different cultures have viewed the pattern of its brightest stars as a turtle shell, crown, wreath, and rock hyrax.

Featured lists

Three featured lists were promoted:

• Ricardo Arjona discography (nom) by Hahc21. The Guatemalan recording artist Ricardo Arjona has released 29 albums and 48 singles since his debut in 1985. Throughout his career, Arjona has sold approximately 20 million albums worldwide, making him one of the most successful Latin artists in music history.
• Usher discography (nom) by Rayman95. The American recording artist Usher has released 17 albums, 1 extended play, and 48 singles since his debut in 1994. He has had nine Hot 100 number-one hits (all with him as a lead artist) and eighteen Hot 100 top-ten hits. Best-received was Confessions in 2004, which sold 20 million copies worldwide and topped the charts in seven countries.
• Chairman of the National Assembly of Vietnam (nom) by TIAYN. The Chairman of the National Assembly of Vietnam is the legislative speaker of the Vietnamese parliament, the National Assembly. The chairman leads the activities of the Standing Committee, a permanent body which controls the actions of the National Assembly when it is not in session.

Featured pictures

Nine featured pictures were promoted:

• Moon (nom; related article), created by Grevera and nominated by Dusty777. The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite, the fifth largest in the Solar System. The same side of the moon always faces Earth.
• Accordion player (nom; related article), created by Cayambe and nominated by Tomer T. Accordions are played by compressing or expanding the bellows while pressing buttons or keys, opening valves (pallets) and allowing air to flow across strips of brass or steel that vibrate to produce sound inside the body.
• Wulfenite (nom; related article), by Archaeodontosaurus. Wulfenite is a common lead molybdate mineral often occurring as stubby, pyramidal or tabular crystals. Sought by collectors, it occurs primarily in lead ores. The featured picture is of a specimen from Mexico.
• Taagepera Castle (nom; related article), created by Iifar and nominated by Tomer T. The Taagepera Castle is a mansion in Valga County, Estonia. Originally mentioned in the 16th century, the current mansion house was designed by the Estonian architect Otto Wildau in the early 20th century.
• Eureka Tower (nom; related article), created by Diliff and nominated by Chris857. Eureka Tower is a 297.3-metre (975 ft) skyscraper located in Melbourne, Australia, and currently the ninth tallest residential building in the world.
• Potter (nom; related article), created by Yann and nominated by Tomer T. In a process called "throwing", a ball of clay is placed in the centre of a turntable, which the potter rotates.
• Charles F. Bolden, Jr. (nom; related article), created by Bill Ingalls and nominated by Pine. Bolden (b. 1946) is the present administrator of NASA. He is a retired United States Marine Corps major general, a former NASA astronaut, and a former naval test pilot. He is the first African American to lead NASA on a non-temporary basis.
• Scelophysa trimeni (nom; related article), created by Julia W. The blue monkey beetle (Scelophysa trimeni) is a species of scarab beetles in the subfamily Rutelinae found exclusively in South Africa. Males of the species are covered in minute sky-blue scales while the scales of the females are sienna brown.
• Windmill in Kuremaa, Estonia (nom; related article), created by Iifar and nominated by Pine. A windmill is a machine which converts the energy of wind into rotational energy by means of vanes called sails or blades. Originally used for milling grain, they have been adapted to many other uses.

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2012-10-01

WMF and the German chapter face up to Toolserver uncertainty

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By Jarry1250 and Tony1

The Toolserver is an external service hosting the hundreds of webpages and scripts (collectively known as "tools") that assist Wikimedia communities in dozens of mostly menial tasks. Few people think that it has been operating well recently; the problems, which include high database replication lag and periods of total downtime, have caused considerable disruption to the Toolserver's usual functions. Those functions are highly valued by many Wikimedia communities, comprising data reports on the relationships between pages, categories, images, and external links; support for Wiki Loves Monuments, OpenStreetMap and GLAM projects; talk-page archiving services; edit counters; and tools aimed at easing many automated administrative processes such as the account and unblock request processes on several major wikis, as well as cross-wiki abuse detection.

How did the Toolserver start?

It was originally set up in 2005 through the donation by Sun Microsystems of servers to Wikimedia Deutschland (WMDE); so it was almost by coincidence that the German chapter was prompted to take on responsibility for the project. WMDE has since invested heavily in Toolserver infrastructure and its operations—an unusually global role for a chapter, resulting from the particular nature of its revenue streams and German charity laws. There has been in-kind support from the Wikimedia Foundation, mostly in the form of database replication and space in its Amsterdam data centre (valued at US$65k a year), as well as financial grants to expand the hardware (example). Nevertheless, WMDE still makes up the bulk of the general budget of about €100k (US$130k); other chapters, such as Wikimedia UK, have also made smaller contributions.

Wikimedia Labs vs Toolserver: a comedy of errors?

In 2011, the Foundation announced the creation of Wikimedia Labs, a much better funded project that among other things aimed to mimic the Toolserver's functionality by mid-2013. At the same time, Erik Möller, the WMF's director of engineering, announced that the Foundation would no longer be supporting the Toolserver financially, but would continue to provide the same in-kind support as it had done previously.

DaB is the volunteer who administers the Toolserver, and who in the process has acquired unique expertise for running the system. (WMDE has also contracted Marlen Caemmerer to assist in Toolserver administration since October 2011.) DaB told the Signpost that there is a simple reason for the recent degradation in performance: the Toolserver's hardware was not added to in 2012, while more tools have been written and more people are using the tools. The German chapter, he says, has refused his request to extend the hardware infrastructure, giving only a vague commitment of support. But its September forward planning allocates just a fraction of last year's funding.

DaB's comments are a reference to a message from WMDE's CEO, Pavel Richter, who publicly reassured Toolserver developers this week that "Wikimedia Deutschland will make all necessary investments [including new hardware] to keep the Toolserver up and running", but said that the chapter could not ignore the existence and growth of Labs. The movement now faces a complex challenge in working out how to maintain continuous support of the tools, a complexity that is obvious from recent debates (conducted in German) on Meta and the German Wikipedia; moreover, DaB has threatened to resign if WMDE does not allocate funds for hardware purchase.

What the WMF didn't anticipate, and what it now seems as though they're naively ignoring despite the outcry, is that WMDE doesn't have anything like the foundation's eight-figure budget, and apparently the WMF has decided the Toolserver is going to get the short end of the stick when it comes to funding.

 — Hersfold

Richter's reference to Wikimedia Labs' rapid growth prompted WMF deputy director Erik Möller to express the Foundation's thinking (full version, including rationale) in response to questions raised about the scenario:

It is true that we (the WMF) have ... asked WMDE to work with us in transitioning from Toolserver to Labs. ... Chapters are autonomous organizations, and it's WMDE's call how much / whether it wants to continue to invest in [the Toolserver] ... However, for our part, we will not continue to support the current arrangement ... indefinitely. The timeline we've discussed with Wikimedia Germany is roughly as follows:

• Wind down new account creation on Toolserver by Q2 of 2013 calendar year
• Decommission Toolserver by December 2013

Möller accepted that Labs, while well-resourced both in terms of processing capability and storage space, is not yet suitable for Toolserver migrants, lacking (among other things) both database replication and a "Quick Start" mode for users uninterested in Labs' capability for custom server setups. While funding has been put aside for developing such features, Möller would not commit to targeted WMF funding for tool transition, and therein lies the cause of concern among volunteer Toolserver developers: that they could be left facing a switchover deadline without being in a position (lacking either the time, the capabilities, or both) to migrate their tools themselves. They are concerned, then, that only time will tell what will happen to these popular but difficult to migrate tools, to whose continued existence both WMDE and the WMF seem unwilling to commit.

English Wikipedia arbitrator Hersfold was closely involved in writing the "unblock ticket request system" (UTRS), which allows blocked users—including innocent parties caught up in range-blocks—to appeal their blocks. UTRS, created only recently and now officially mandated by the Foundation, is written for the Toolserver, not the Labs environment. Hersfold told the Signpost:

How Labs functions seems to be almost completely different from how the Toolserver functions. We've been told multiple times that Labs will provide lots of "beefy" infrastructure for tools development; ... users will be able to set up virtual machines, or "instances" ... to handle their development, and submit new programming code to a shared location. As one may expect from the Foundation, it's a very collaborative setup. Once inside their instance, a user can more-or-less do whatever they want; install MediaWiki, run a bot, set up web pages for tools, whatever. But most people on the Toolserver don't need "beefy"; we just need a web server that will let us run our tools and access the databases holding information about Wikipedia and the other projects. If someone needed "beefy," they'd have set up their own server ages ago. While Labs is all swishy and fancy (and presumably has less downtime than the Toolserver), it's an environment we're all completely unused to, and perhaps worst of all, it provides no access to the Wikimedia databases, which will prevent most tools and bots from working at all. Supposedly this functionality will be available at some point in the future [editor's note: planned for the first quarter of 2013] ... I don't think either organization fully realizes how much Wikipedia, the Commons, and all the other projects rely on the tools provided by the Toolserver ... [if it goes,] most of the tools and bots we take for granted will suddenly cease to function.

Carl, another developer, agreed, "labs will be useful for some projects, particularly for developing MediaWiki extensions. [But] the current plans seem to be intentionally preventing [other] Toolserver users from simply migrating their tools to Labs; the result will be a great leap backwards when/if the toolserver is taken offline."

The Signpost understands that a further sticking-point is licensing: while recommended to, some tool operators have not released their code under a free license, which is a requirement for using Labs (one operator has stated he legally cannot do so, since he created the tool using his company's computer systems, so the company holds the copyright).

An earlier version of this article incorrectly asserted that access to the Wikimedia databases would occur in December 2013. It is actually planned for the first quarter of next year.

In brief

Signpost poll

Code review priorities

You can now give your opinion on next week's poll: How often do you use the Toolserver?

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.

• Page Curation launched: Page Curation, a set of tools developed by the WMF to assist in reviewing newly-created articles (see the video tour), was deployed to the English Wikipedia on 20 September. The initial responses have been positive, with only minor bugs affecting performance.
• MediaWiki 1.21wmf1 begins deployment cycle: 1.21wmf1 – the first release to Wikimedia wikis of the 1.21 cycle (that is to say, the first the branching of MediaWiki 1.20 proper last week) – was deployed to its first wikis on October 1 and will be deployed to all wikis by October 10. The release incorporates about 220 changes to the MediaWiki software that powers Wikipedia, comprising 101 "core" changes plus a similar number of patches for WMF-deployed extensions. Among the changes (the product of some 14 days of development time) are fixes for Special:BrokenRedirects (bug #9237), log pages and a range of database handling improvements aimed at improving performance and reducing the possibility of errors occurring. In related news, former bugmeister Mark Hershberger, who has taken on the role of overseeing the MediaWiki 1.20 release, published a list of what needed doing before the software update could go public.
• Wikidata six months on: The Wikidata project to implement centralised interwiki links (phase 1), infoboxes (phase 2) and dynamic lists (phase 3) is now officially six months old, noted the project's identi.ca feed this week. Originally working to time, the need for code review has slowed progress on phase 1 of the project, which is joint-funded by Wikimedia Deutschland and several of its partners. Fortunately, many of that phase's tricky code review issues do seem to have been finally resolved over the past fortnight (wikitech-l mailing list), suggesting that the long awaited trial deployment to the Hungarian Wikipedia could begin shortly. Development work on phase 2 is already underway, with phase 3 not expected until well into next year.
• Assault on email spoofing begins: Concern early last month about a fake @wikimedia.org email address, combined with WMF internal concerns about donation emails, led to action this week. The Foundation will now use the Sender Policy Framework to help ISPs flag up spoof emails ending in the address. Worries about whether all staff and volunteer holders of the addresses can be registered for the system have however led to only low level protection initially being offered; the plan is then to increase the protection offered over time, making it harder and harder for anyone other than the rightful owners of the addresses to use them in the "From" field of their emails (wikitech-l mailing list).
• Issue with multistream bz2 files fixed, aids dump accessibility: A long-standing problem with .bz2 multistream files that long prevented reusers from making full use of them was fixed this week by WMF Data Dumps Engineer Ariel Glenn (blogpost). The multistream files for September are being regenerated with the fix, which allows reusers to more easily jump straight to the content of the article they are interested in without needing to search through the entire, often prohibitively large, files. Together with this change, Glenn generated a simple proof-of-concept tool to demonstrate one way to take advantage of the feature, which is likely to be of most use to researchers interested in tracking the content of individual articles across time.
• Three bots approved: 3 BRFAs were recently approved for use on the English Wikipedia:
  1. VIAFbot's 1st BRFA, adding {{authority control}} tags to articles linking to viaf.org; the operator is Maximilianklein;
  2. BattyBot's 12th BRFA, changing {{Cleanup}} to {{Video game cleanup}} on the relevant articles; the operator is GoingBatty;
  3. DPL bot's 4th BRFA, tagging and removing tags from articles based on whether they should have the {{incoming links}} template; the operator is JaGa;

At the time of writing, 14 BRFAs are active. As usual, community input is encouraged.

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2012-10-01

The Name's Bond... WikiProject James Bond

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By Mabeenot

WikiProject news

News in brief

• The Counter-Vandalism Academy has been drastically revamped, and is looking for experienced editors to help serve as trainers
• A new issue of the WikiProject NASCAR newsletter has been released
• WikiProject Articles for Creation could use help with its huge backlog
• Following a Templates for Discussion nomination, the {{wikify}} tag has been deprecated in favor of {{underlinked}} and more specific maintenance templates

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

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the James Bond film series, we spent some time bonding with WikiProject James Bond. The project is in the unique position of having already pushed all of its primary content to Good and Featured status, including all of Ian Fleming's novels, short stories, and every film that has been released. Work has begun in earnest on the article Skyfall for the release of the new Bond film later this month. The project could still use help improving articles about Bond actors, characters, gadgets, music, video games, and related topics. We interviewed Schrodinger's cat is alive (SchroCat), igordebraga, and Betty Logan.

What motivated you to join WikiProject James Bond? Please share with us your favorite Bond novel, movie, and actor.

SchroCat: I became involved when I saw into what parlous state the Dr. No article had fallen. I looked further and saw that none of the books were particularly up to scratch and many of the film articles were in a similar situation: it seemed a sorry situation for such a body of work.

My favourite Bond is Fleming's Bond: the literary character, rather than the film version. I enjoy the films immensely, but I get far more pleasure from the novels and stories than I do from the films.

igordebraga: After I started getting the Ultimate Edition DVDs in 2007, I watched the extensive bonus material, and decided to use that to improve the film articles. From there, found it better to join the project. Haven't read the books, but my favorite movie is GoldenEye, and Bond is either Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnan.

Betty Logan: I'm not a member of the project since I don't undertake article development on it, but I'm happy to review articles, offer third opinions, offer general assistance; you could say I'm an associate of the project. My favorite Bond is Roger Moore (yeah yeah I know, but I kind of like how he did completely his own thing), although my favorite Bond film is On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Read a few of the Fleming novels and Live and Let Die is my favorite.

Have you contributed to any of the project's Featured and Good Articles? Why has the project been so successful in building every Bond story and film to Good Article status? What can other WikiProjects learn from the persistence of WikiProject James Bond?

SchroCat: I've contributed to a few—1 FA, 2 FLs and 36 GAs, I think. A lot of our work was based on edits from four or five years ago by a number of users, but particularly K1Bond007 (talk · contribs), 23skidoo (talk · contribs) and Dr. Blofeld (talk · contribs), whose names came up time after time in the articles we improved. After a push over the last fifteen months by an excellent group of editors, there are now 36 more articles at GA standard, two at FL and two at FA, which is no mean achievement. Special mention on those articles should go to Betty Logan (talk · contribs), Igordebraga (talk · contribs) and Dr. Blofeld (talk · contribs) (again) for their work, which was truly monumental.

The Bond project in a good place at the moment: 63 GAs, 5 FAs and 2 FLs is not a bad record, especially as all the film and book articles are GA-rated (with one FA), apart from Skyfall, which can't go through the process until the film has been released. We have two Good Topics (one for the books and one for the films) with a raft of supporting articles. The important ones are either already GA-rated, or will be at least GAs within a year or so. Ian Fleming has just been made up to FA, which is fantastic, especially as it it not long before Skyfall is released and the 50th anniversary celebrations all kick off.

In terms of our approach to article development:

1. We approached it systematically, going chronologically through the films and then the books, one after the other.
2. We used a small team of two, three or four to do the core work. Too many editors involved leads to work by committee, which isn't the best way of pushing through. The small team got stuff done, which the larger network or watchers tended to correct, copy edit, polish and ask pertinent questions to keep it on track.
3. We didn't stop between articles. We finished one, nominated for GA and started on the next within a day or so. There were times we had three or four films racked up in GA Nomination, but we pestered a few reviewers who responded magnificently to our requests. The momentum kept us going as much as anything.

We've been very lucky with our GA reviewers, who have been truly great, putting in huge amounts of work for very little in the way of kudos and we're deeply indebted to people like Ian Rose (talk · contribs), Matthew R Dunn (talk · contribs) and GreatOrangePumpkin (talk · contribs) (amongst others) for all the work they have done.

igordebraga: Even before I joined, I did a drive-by GA nom of Pierce Brosnan and The World Is Not Enough (song) - which I also helped with the FA requests; also kudos to Breakinguptheguy (talk · contribs), the Garbage fan responsible for the bulk of that article. After getting the DVDs, I improved and nominated for Good Status four of the movies, and expanded sections on many others. In 2009-10, decided to improve the article of another Bond theme, "You Know My Name". In-between, also did some work on GoldenEye 007 (1997 video game).

When the project had started its goal of a Bond topic in 2007, the article improvement was steady, specially thanks to those users SchroCat listed and also SpecialWindler (talk · contribs) and the sadly MIA Ultraviolet scissor flame (talk · contribs). Then in 2009 things started to slow down - to the point that both Dr. No and Goldfinger lost their Good status. I always kept postponing on getting the green shield back to Dr. No, and then last year SchroCat nominated it and I decided to help him out. It worked, and we collaborated on filling the remaining gaps - including the lead article, as James Bond in film was still in bad shape and we split a section of that for a featured list, List of James Bond films. The process went as listed above, with also a deep focus on researching (SchroCat with his books, myself with the DVDs, both on Google Books and general websites), and some concern on fixing the already Good (or featured) articles which could hinder the Good Topic nomination.

The lesson is clear: no matter how long is the list of articles involved, the required data for a better article (and how many sources you'll need) and the time it will take, if you are devoted to creating a topic, and have some organization on the process (including knowing which people to consult) it can be done.

Are there any gaps in the coverage of the James Bond series? Are some decades of the series's existence easier to research than others? Where can the project's articles use the most improvement?

SchroCat: There is still work to do: the production history of James Bond in film is still only a B-grade and there are sufficient reliable secondary sources which would enable it to get to GA standard. There are also a number of other supporting pages which are a way off the GA standard: these tend to be the articles that look at the notable characters, music, video games and crew, not to mention the articles on the main actors!

igordebraga: Researching the internet-era movies (i.e. from GoldenEye onward) is supposedly easier - after all, two recent theme songs are above B-grade - but the ongoing popularity of the series allows for easy data on mostly every movie, along with many sources on Google Books. The problem is to determine what's reliable, given some info is only found in fansites, and despite examples such as Mi6-HQ.com, that's usually not to be trusted.

Betty Logan: On the whole the project has a broad scope, but the one think that does jump out is the lack of coverage of the character itself on film. However Schrodinger's cat is currently drafting out an article to tackle this shortcoming.

Do James Bond articles attract the vandalism, in-universe writing, fancruft, or speculation that beleaguers WikiProjects dedicated to other works of fiction?

SchroCat: Actual vandalism is quite rare and we've been pretty lucky on that front so far. Quite a lot of time is spent reverting the good faith but misguided edits—largely those involving usual fancruft, in-universe writing etc, as well as a lot of WP:ENGVAR reversions. We also spend a lot of time removing either unsourced or poorly sourced material. Most of this is from IP editors, who are fairly good once the policies and style are explained to them.

igordebraga: Fancruft of sorts even lead the articles on individual characters plus lists of henchmen and allies to be purged and turned into redirects, as the articles hardly had any development besides telling what happened to said character in the movie.

Betty Logan: There is an "in universe" problem with some spin-off articles but it is currently being addressed with some articles up for merges and deletes. The one thing that used to bug me was the emphasis on the "Eon universe" but this has been taken care of.

Does the James Bond series's popularity and longevity impact the recruitment of members to the project? How does the project's community compare to other long-running series like the recently interviewed WikiProject Doctor Who or WikiProject Star Trek?

SchroCat: We're actually a very quiet project with little in the way of concerted efforts, except for occasional pushes on things. Most people will dabble on an article here and there, and keep a few favourites on their watchlist which they'll watch (I doubt anyone has every article on their list as there are 720 of them!) We tend to stick to smaller groups who push forward with a mini project while the rest of us support and add help and input where we can.

igordebraga: The project's busiest days in 2007-08 are far from here, with now only the occasional pushes (and still sometimes they're one-man projects, like myself in You Know My Name and SchroCat with the books). But given not every project-wise collaboration worked, while the smaller group which started last year is piling up Good Articles (and a few featured ones), it's not much of a problem.

With the new James Bond film Skyfall due for release in October on the film series's 50th anniversary, what articles need the most attention? How can Wikipedians help prepare for future developments in the James Bond series?

SchroCat: I think that the most pressing matter now, with the new film and anniversary splash coming up, is that we make sure that the new additions onto the various articles are properly sourced and do not include rumours or info that is published on fansites or not officially confirmed. In terms of article development, the James Bond in film needs work, as do all the non-GA articles which look at characters, such as Bond girl‎, Miss Moneypenny etc, music, video games, crew and actors: the Assessment Table is a good place to find something good to look at!

igordebraga: Developing the core articles and keeping the Skyfall article up-to-date with reliable information should be enough to please the extra visitors that will appear with the attention given to the anniversary. But we'd better have information from reliable sources instead of speculation and huge blocks of unsourced text.

Betty Logan: The thing I like most is the use of properly written published books as sources, and personally I think the sourcing is superior to much of what we get on film articles. It generally takes a few years for a film to become the subject of book research so film articles tend to be generated from websites and magazine/newspaper articles (compare the sources at Quantum of Solace to what is at Dr. No). To maintain the referencing standard it will be important to revisit articles about the later films and overhaul the sourcing at some point. There is a certain irony in that the answer to this question is that the best way to respond to future developments is probably to not expend too much effort on them, since there is probably more value in working on articles about the older films and novels where there is a greater potential for high quality encyclopedic coverage.

Next week, we'll celebrate another anniversary by revisiting the largest WikiProject ever created. Until then, explore five years of the WikiProject Report in the archive.

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