Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2017-11-24

Under the heading rerum causas cognescere, the first ever Wikidata conference got under way in the Tagesspiegel building with two keynotes. One was on YAGO, a knowledge base conceived ten years ago featuring automatic compilation from Wikipedia. The other keynote was from manager Lydia Pintscher, on the "state of the data". Interesting rumours flourished around Magnus Manske's mix'n'match tool and its 600+ datasets, mostly in digital humanities, and its adoption by the WMF. One also heard of an imminent Wikibase incubator site. Announcements came in talks: structured data on Wikimedia Commons is scheduled to make substantive progress by 2019. The lexeme development effort on Wikidata is not expected to make the Wiktionary sites redundant, but may facilitate future automated compilation of dictionaries.

And so it went, with five strands of talks and workshops running until 11 pm on Saturday. Wikidata applies to GLAM work via metadata. It may be used in education, raises issues such as author disambiguation, and lends itself to different types of graphical display and reuse. Many millions of SPARQL queries are run on the site every day. Over the summer a large open science bibliography has come into existence there.

Wikidata's fifth birthday party on the Sunday brought WikidataCon to a close. See a dozen and more reports by other hands. CM

This piece was originally published in issue 6 of Facto Post.

Two incidents recently occurred by individuals with a special position of trust in the English Wikipedia. Both involved paid editing; one resulted in a community ban, and the other is undergoing discussion at Arbcom and noticeboards with at least three administrators asking for revocation or resignation of the sysop bit.

The first case involves KDS4444 who was granted OTRS access as part of the volunteer response team in September 2015. OTRS is the ticketing system across all Wikimedia projects and is used, among other things, by companies and individuals who ask for changes to be made in their articles without violating the conflict of interest guideline. It was alleged at the Administrators' noticeboard (AN) that KDS4444 had used his OTRS access to identify candidates for paid editing work, then email them with offers in the 300 dollar range to make edits on their articles. KDS4444 had his OTRS access revoked on 21 October and was community banned from English Wikipedia on November 17. At the AN discussion some editors wanted to use less drastic remedies on ENWP for an editor who had contributed over 150 articles. Others harshly criticized his actions "actively soliciting for paid work" in a position of trust as "completely unconscionable" and "[in] defiance of community norms".

The second case involves Mister Wiki, a commercial Wikipedia editing firm, and Salvidrim! who has been an administrator on English Wikipedia since January 2013. The Conflict of interest Noticeboard (COIN) case (permlink) was followed by an Arbcom filing (permlink). Salvidrim! and others (who are not administrators) are declared paid editors for Mister Wiki. Salvidrim! had created an alternate account for paid editing, Salvidrim! (paid) and declared that they were working for Mister Wiki. But problematic interactions between the Mister Wiki team members were identified at COIN, including approving one anothers' drafts at Articles for creation (AfC). An administrator (TonyBallioni) reviewing the activity stated that Salvidrim! "as a sysop actively asked an AfC reviewer to move an article you had been paid to edit out of draft space" and that "breach of the trust we place in administrators and is why I think you should resign as a sysop"; another administrator (Doc James) said "These sorts of activities have a significant potential to harm our shared brand" and joined at least one other administrator (JzG) in a request for either de-sysopping or a new Requests for adminship. The request for an Arbcom case was filed on November 21, after Salvidrim! declared he would not voluntarily give up the bit "today, or tomorrow, or this week".

The last well known sysop abuse of position incident was the 2015 Wifione Arbcom case which resulted in de-sysop and ban (see previous Signpost coverage).

A discussion "Should Wikipedians be allowed to use community granted tools in exchange for money?" was begun by Doc James at Village Pump before either of these two incidents was brought to ENWP noticeboards. B

• New chief product officer: The WMF appointed Toby Negrin as Chief Product Officer on 8 November 2017. Negrin was previously the Interim Vice President of Product.
• No new administrators: There are no new administrators for The Signpost to welcome; there were no requests for adminship between TonyBallioni's, which concluded on 19 October (reported in our previous issue), and Joe Roe's RFA, which started on 23 November.
• Milestones: The following Wikipedia projects reached milestones recently: Tajik Wikipedia: 90,000 articles (21 November); Latvian Wikipedia: 80,000 articles (17 November); Albanian Wikipedia: 70,000 articles (10 November); English Wikipedia: 5,500,000 articles (28 October)

Following a case that closed on 16 October 2017, Arthur Rubin was desysopped "for repeatedly not meeting the community expectations and responsibilities of administrators as outlined in WP:ADMINACCT". Specific incidents included removing permissions from a user during an ANI discussion – which reversed another admin's administrative action without prior notification or discussion – and failing to provide evidence for claims made against another user.

• Crosswiki issues request: Request opened 31 October 2017 by Fram, other involved party Ymblanter – motion for discussion closed 22 November probably looking at an RfC about "whether and how information from Wikidata should be used on English Wikipedia"
• Mister Wiki case: Request opened 21 November 2017 by TonyBallioni; other involved parties Salvidrim! and Soetermans – vote reached 6/0/0 on 23 November and very likely to result in a case

• Zoyetu request: Request opened 16 October 2017 by Zoyetu – declined <0/4/0/3>, opener topic banned on 7 November
• Joefromrandb request: Request opened 20 October 2017 by TomStar81 – declined <3/7/2>
• Conduct at Reference Desks request: Request opened 30 October 2017 by Robert McClenon – declined <0/9/0>
• List of unofficial users of Iranian rial request: Request opened 31 October 2017 by John N Smith – unanimously declined
• Nathan B. Forrest request: Request opened 6 November 2017 by Azarbarzin – declined <0/8/0>
• List of European islands by population – Island of Ireland countries editing dispute: Request opened 9 November 2017 by PompeyTheGreat – declined <0/7/0>

• Elections: 2017 elections kicked off with Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2017. There are eight vacant seats with two-year terms. Self-nominations are closed; voting will commence Monday 00:00, 27 November until Sunday 23:59, 10 December, UTC.

A new search interface is now available as a beta feature on MediaWiki.org. The interface enhances the Special:Search page experience, by changing the way namespaces and other advanced parameters are specified. This makes it easier for users to discover and utilise existing search features, such as intitle:.

When you click on the arrow in the advanced parameters section, it expands to give you a form to set parameters for advanced searches. Explanations on each parameter can be found next to each input field. Namespaces can be selected from the "Search in", where you can either type them in or select from a dropdown list.

The idea came from a workshop series on advanced search held by WMDE's software development department, as part of their Technical Wishes Project. The beta feature was made available to test wikis and Mediawiki.org on 21 November 2017, and will also be available on Arabic and German Wikipedias from 29 November.

Further information is available on MediaWiki.org and Meta-wiki.

The annual Community Tech wishlist survey is underway for 2017. Since early November, 220 proposals in 15 categories have been submitted from 284 contributors. The proposal phase has concluded; voting begins on 27 November at meta:2017 Community Wishlist Survey.

So far this year, the team has completed five of the top ten wishes: Rewrite XTools (#5), Wikitext editor syntax highlighting (#6), Warning on unsuccessful login attempts (#7), Fix Mr. Z-bot’s popular pages bot (#9), and User rights expiration (#10). Other top wishes, as well as anti-harassment tools and projects for smaller groups, are being worked on or investigated.

With the promotion of S. O. Davies to a featured article (FA) in 2016, Brianboulton became Wikipedia's third featured article centurion. Despite having semi-retired from content creation in recent years, he remains an active user, and still produces the occasional FA.

• When did you first start editing Wikipedia? What first got you interested?

• I first became aware of Wikipedia in its early days, and would sometimes look things up. I did occasional edits as an IP – the earliest I can now trace is dated December 2005, but there are probably earlier ones. I began to appreciate WP's potential as an information source, and thought I could contribute something, so I registered this username in November 2007.

• How did you feel when you got your first featured article approved?

• Surprised. Back in 2008 I had no ambitions beyond GA for my polar article on the Ross Sea party 1914–1917, but someone suggested I try it at FAC. Looking at the FAC review now, I'd say I got an easy ride, and I've certainly had to update and improve the article to bring it up to today's more exacting FA standards. But the experience got my enthusiasm going, and other articles soon followed.

• You are one of Wikipedia's most prolific featured content contributors. Could you describe your method (i.e. how you get an article to FA status)?

• Well, I have a wide range of interests. I look out for topics in these favourite fields which are unrepresented or underdone in WP, and set about creating or expanding the article in question. The first stage is background reading and research, in particular identifying the best sources to be used. That's a tremendous learning process, I've found. I begin to draft text in sandboxes, moving to mainspace as things begin to take shape. It's quite a difficult balancing act to be thorough and concise at the same time; my advice is generally to err on the side of concision. I'll seek feedback through the peer review process before final polishing – it's usually a mistake to jump into the FAC process without prior review, however experienced an editor you are.

• What are you most proud of doing in Wikipedia?

• "Proud" isn't a word I'd use. I like to think I've improved the quality of content in some areas, such as polar exploration, opera, political history, etc., and I've enjoyed a number of collaborations with other editors thus widening my range of knowledge. I hope that through my reviewing I've helped to raise the standards of our best work. I am pleased that I helped to launch the mentoring scheme whereby first-time editors at FAC get guidance through what can seem an intimidating process. I also enjoyed my stint as a TFA coordinator and would do that again if the need arose.

• What are the major frustrations of editing Wikipedia?

• Wikipedia has changed a lot in the last ten years. Most of the editors I worked with in my most productive years have either retired altogether or have reduced their involvement, so that I no longer have the feeling I once had of being part of a kind of online common room, among colleagues with shared interests and goals. Too much time is spent by editors following their private hobby-horses – the recurrent dispute over infoboxes is a case in point – rather than pursuing the common objective of improving the encyclopedia with due respect for the opinions of others. I have observed regrettable cases of largely unpunished bullying. Overall, it seems that enthusiasm has been replaced by indifference; for example, it is painful to see how long some quite excellent articles have to wait at PR or FAC before they get any attention.

• Building on the above question, what is the most prominent change you have seen in your many years here?

• On the positive side, the standard of featured articles has undoubtedly risen – the review process is generally more thorough, there is very little nodding through or fan-based support, although I think the process is now unnecessarily slow. I'm sad that subjects that used to be among our strongest content areas, such as Literature and Ancient History, scarcely appear now, and I'm not keen on an apparent over-emphasis on articles concerned with video games or TV series. Also, the loss of experienced content editors seems to shifted the balance of power in Wikipedia towards what Kipling called "The Gods of the Copybook Headings". Far too much time and effort is wasted over the attempted resolution of trivial disputes more concerned with process than content. Maybe this was always the case and I just didn't notice when I was newer in the game.

• What do you think is the most common mistake made by editors?

• I think a common mistake among newer editors has been their interpretation of the "anyone can edit" principle as giving them the unrestricted right to make changes or additions to articles without consultation or regard to the effect on the article as a whole. The adding of unsourced trivia to featured articles is a bane that requires constant housekeeping attention.

• Do you ever get tired?

• I'm sure we all do.

• What is the most interesting piece of trivia you have learned in your time here?

• Goodness, I've encountered so many bits of trivial knowledge (some of it deeply interesting, by the way) during my article reviewing that it's difficult to answer this question. It's in the nature of trivia that it's quickly forgotten. But among the scraps I do remember are that Sir Thomas Beecham supported Blackburn Rovers FC, that the composer Delius was a promising fast bowler in his youth, and followed England's Test side all his life, and that Michael Tippett and Malcolm Sargent shared a piano tutor called Miss Tinkler.

• Where do you see yourself, and Wikipedia as a whole in five years? Ten years?

• I think Wikipedia will still be here, but perhaps in a different form. The commercial potential of a website with millions of daily hits is enormous, so maybe somewhere along the line the Wikimedia Foundation will decide to cash its billion-dollar chips in? Who knows? As to myself, I'll carry on as long as I continue to get some satisfaction from my involvement. I'm not as active in content creation as I once was; two or three major articles a year is about my limit. My main activities now are reviewing, mentoring, and refreshing and updating my earlier articles; how long I'll continue to do this is anyone's guess, but five years seems an awfully long time, and ten more years is very hard to envisage!

• Anything else you'd like to add?

• A thanks to you, for keeping Signpost going, and my very good wishes

Thank you so much for your time. I look up to you as someone to aspire to be, and I'm sure the Wikipedia community feels similarly.

Hey folks!

I've been working on some cool technology to help WikiProjects. I've learned that many WikiProject organizers struggle to get members and manage the tasks of maintaining a WikiProject, with the result that lots of WikiProjects become inactive. I made a bot that scans RecentChanges for people who have been working on or near a WikiProject's tagged articles and who are likely to be productive members of the project; it then recommends these editors to project organizers who can choose whether to invite them. So far, six WikiProjects have signed up and have been using the bot. Here's what some of them have to say:

• "I really think Bobo.03 is on to something here. This puts some science behind recommendations, and will be a great supplement to the current processes. We've already had new members join thanks to Bobo.03's tool ..." – Peacemaker67, MILHIST
• "I would recommend the tool to others as a valuable way to reach new editors who might otherwise slip through the cracks, and who might prove to be valuable members of the community ..." – Tom, WPVG
• "Taking our comments into consideration, Bobo.03 provided us with recruitment lists over the course of three months, each iteration is an improvement over the previous one. An impressive number of those who were invited have joined our project ..." – Rosiestep, WiR

I'm now ready to make the tool available to more WikiProject organizers. If you're interested and want to try it for yourself, contact me on my talk page and I'll help you get set up!

In the meantime, keep reading to see an example of what the recommendations look like and read more quotes from project organizers who've already tried the tool.

More thoughts from our interviews with some Wikipedians who already have used our system:

How important it is for your project to recruit new members?

• "Because WikiProject Video Games is one of Wikipedia's largest such projects, it is fortunate that recruitment is not as critical as smaller projects for which membership is an existential matter. But that's not to say WP:VG doesn't do any recruitment." – Tom, WPVG
• "Very important. We have around 1,000 members and many of them are currently inactive, so we are always looking for new editors to join Milhist." – PeaceMaker67, MILHIST
• "The tool is most helpful with surfacing users who have shown interest in the subject area and may not know that a WikiProject page exists to solicit third opinions, get feedback, and pool sourcing expertise." – Czar, WPVG

What is your experience using our tool?

• "The tool has gone through several iterations in connection with its application for WiR. Initially, the output was rather difficult to interpret, especially as it contained many Wikipedians who have regularly created articles on women over the years but who were obviously not interested in joining. ... I was pleased to see that in later versions of the tool, most items on potential recruits also contained information on their interests." – Ipigott, WiR
• "My experience has been positive. The majority of the recommendations have been clueful and we've had a few positive responses." – PeaceMaker67, MILHIST

What would you say to other WikiProject organizers who are considering signing up to get recommendations?

• "I would recommend the tool to others as a valuable way to reach new editors who might otherwise slip through the cracks, and who might prove to be valuable members of the community. Early guidance in Wikipedia's rules, customs, and culture is likely to make for a smooth transition from new editor to established editor, and I believe this tool will enable established users to more effectively and systematically reach a better cross section of new potential editors for the WikiProject." – Tom, WPVG
• "Women in Red is rather different from most of the other WikiProjects but I have also seen positive reactions from other projects where the tool has been tested. I think the more active WikiProjects would benefit from the tool if they wish to increase their membership." – Ipigott, WiR
• "Do it. Try it out and see what you think." – PeaceMaker67, MILHIST

Some other comments from Wikipedians:

• "One of Women in Red's 2017 goals was to develop a recruitment strategy. We know we have a lot of contributors, in addition to our members, but we didn't understand how to develop a recruitment process, let alone an automated one. After user:Bobo.03 reached out to us with his proposal, Women in Red had many conversations with him regarding our scope, our metrics, and our requirements. Taking our comments into consideration, he provided us with recruitment lists over the course of three months, each iteration an improvement over the previous one. An impressive number of those who were invited have joined our project. The short-term impact is greater awareness regarding Wikipedia's content gender gap and what one WikiProject is doing about it; the long-term impact will take time to assess. In the meantime, a big thank you to Bobo.03 for developing this tool, which I think is currently only available on ENWP but other language Wikipedias would probably find it useful." – Rosiestep, WiR
• "I really think Bobo.03 is on to something here. To date, recruitment of new editors to Wikiproject Military history has been rather organic, with coordinators inviting them to join when we notice someone new via our watchlisted articles. But no-one has all our articles watchlisted. This puts some science behind recommendations, and will be a great supplement to the current processes. We've already had new members join thanks to Bobo.03's tool. I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes." – Peacemaker67, MILHIST

Again, if you like what you see and you want to test it out, contact me on my talk page! Bobo.03 (talk) 20:57, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Media reported on some errors in, or "hacking" of, Wikipedia, however short term. Maybe this is a good sign of the work's importance as a global media institution but maybe not a good sign of assumption of correctness for realtime events like a coup d'état or a televised beauty contest.

Vandalism of Phineas Gage was labeled "hacking" by the International Business Times and attributed to GNAA trolls in a campaign to smear BuzzFeed reporter Joseph Bernstein for reporting on the alt-right. (Jain, Rishabh (15 November 2017). "Wikipedia Hack Targets BuzzFeed Reporter Who Exposed Hedge Fund Billionaire's Alt-Right Connection". International Business Times.) The 2017 Zimbabwean coup d'état left the Wikipedia biography of Robert Mugabe in disarray, indicating for a period that he was no longer president, when (according to the current article revision) he was only under house arrest. (Austin, Winifred (16 November 2017). "Mugabe's Wikipedia profile updated to former president". Daily Post. Nigeria.) The International Business Times scorned Wikipedians again, holding up a revision of Miss World 2017 that listed the wrong winner – before results were actually announced, and which was reverted after seven minutes – as proof that "Wikipedia page [sic] can be edited by anyone and you cannot trust the platform." (Sharma, Dishya (18 November 2017). "Miss World 2017 winner: Miss Indonesia Achintya Holte Nilsen is the winner? Wikipedia says so!". International Business Times. India.)

And in the feature-not-a-bug category: According to a Washington Times op-ed by Robert H. Knight, "Wikipedia is Britannica — but without factual safeguards" because his edits to American Civil Rights Union with the self-identified account Truthwins09 were reverted and COI identified as a senior fellow employed by the group. Interestingly, for readers interested in finding out more about American Civil Rights Union, the Washington Times displays a synopsis of the Wikipedia article (with credit to Wikipedia). (Knight, Robert (29 October 2017). "'Whackapedia' and its error fest". The Washington Times.)

Wired magazine published another prediction of Wikipedia's end in "How Social Media Endangers Knowledge". The good news: "Trump's rise ... kicked in a significant flow of funds that has stabilized the nonprofit's balance sheet." The bad news: too many people are Amusing Ourselves to Death and not enough of us turning away from television-like media streams, reflected even in popular Wikipedia content which "tend[s] to revolve around television series or their cast".

Concerns about Wikipedia's accuracy and relevance go back to its very beginning; see for instance the December 2006 Signpost analysis of the previous year's Wikipedia Seigenthaler biography incident.

• Computer generated garbage plagues The Signpost media summary team: Volunteer editors for The Signpost, the English Wikipedia newsletter, were indignant at the inconvenience caused by weird publications with article spinning: soulless computer-generated text designed to appear against search engine queries for the term "Wikipedia". These sorts of articles seem to be appearing more often. See for example
  • bejay (16 October 2017). "Scandal at Wikipedia". www.amog.com.
• In praise of the one percent: "Nearly All of Wikipedia Is Written By Just 1 Percent of Its Editors" writes Vice magazine's Motherboard (November 7).
• Worried about Wikipedia's safe harbor: Wikimedia Legal's Technology Law and Policy Fellow Leighanna Mixter says that changes proposed by U.S. Congress under Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) to the safe harbor provisions of Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act would expose Wikimedia to liabilities due to contributors' content. (Liptak, Andrew (11 November 2017). "Wikipedia warns that SESTA will strip away protections vital to its existence". The Verge.)
• Addressing computing gender gap with editathons: Hilary Stohs-Krause, a Wikipedian from Madison, Wisconsin, wants to address the imbalance of articles on women in tech, specifically the history of women in computing, by holding editathons via a Women in Tech meetup group. She holds that one of the causes of the imbalance is an environment that disproportionately attracts "high-skills" male editors. (Lorenzsonn, Erik (15 November 2017). "Library hosting Wikipedia 'edit-a-thon' to improve entries on women in tech". The Cap Times.)
• Founder fighting fake news: Jimbo explains WikiTribune's purpose in combating "the rise of low-quality media and fake news". (Weckler, Adrian (16 November 2017). "'When Kellyanne Conway spoke of alternative facts, my head exploded' - Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales". Irish Independent.)
• Canvassing produces unintended consequences: According to Haaretz, canvassing by supporters of Discovery Institute's Günter Bechly sealed the article's fate during an AfD that featured the community "fending off attempts to politicize scientific content...by religious conservatives." (Benjakob, Omer (17 November 2017). "A Respected Scientist Comes Out Against Evolution – and Loses His Wikipedia Page". Haaretz.)

"People are strange when you're in Stranger Things ... " Netflix's acclaimed sci-fi horror series tops the list for a second week, and brings in eight of its cast members to the top 25 articles for this week, more entries than It back in September and slightly less than the deaths of Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds last December.

"Faces look happy when you have won..." Also heavily on the list is baseball, as the Houston Astros (#8) win their first World Series and bring along three of their players and the wife of one of them.

"Men seem wicked when you're unwanted..." Right behind Stranger Things is another sexual scandal in Hollywood (Harvey Weinstein wasn't enough!), with Kevin Spacey (#2) accused of sexual advances on a 14-year-old fellow actor (#3), leading many other men to reveal the acclaimed performer had done the same with them.

"Streets are uneven when you're down" The rest of the list has four holdovers (two Hollywood movies, a Netflix series, and the week's holiday), the Day of the Dead along with the deceased themselves (the yearly list and a Korean actor), and Reddit discovering how to literally make jewellery out of waste (#9).

For the week of October 29 to November 4, the most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

It's curious how the current trend for "binge watching" works, isn't it? For a conventionally broadcast series, you would expect it to stay at the top of popularity charts as viewers watched it every week, while for a series which all launches at once like how Netflix does it, you'd expect an initial burst as everyone watched at once, before a quick fall away. And yet, Stranger Things remains at number one for a third consecutive week, with star Millie Bobby Brown (#6) also making it into the list.

The only article other than ST to break a million views was baseball player Roy Halladay, who sadly died this week. Thor: Ragnarok is third. Allegations against actor Kevin Spacey (#4) make the list, as do allegations made on behalf of late actor Corey Haim (#10). The Paradise Papers (#9) was a big story making the news this week; while there's also the usual entries provided by Reddit and UFC.

For the week of November 5 to 11, the most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

• These lists excludes the Wikipedia main page, non-article pages (such as redlinks), and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Since mobile view data became available to the Report in October 2014, we exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (5–6% or less) or almost all mobile views (94–95% or more) because they are very likely to be automated views based on our experience and research of the issue. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the Top 25 Report talk page if you wish.
• Per agreed consensus, XXX (franchise) is excluded.

32 featured articles were promoted.

• Pru (nominated by Aoba47) is the debut studio album by American singer Pru. It was released on November 7, 2000, through Capitol Records. Pru was managed by Capitol Records executive Roy Lott, who had signed Pru to Warner/Chappell Music Publishing after being impressed by her songwriting and voice on a demo tape. Pru collaborated with Ben Garrison, the Characters, and Rick Williams on the album.
• The Guilden Morden boar (nominated by Usernameunique) is a sixth- or seventh-century Anglo-Saxon copper alloy figure of a boar that may have once served as the crest of a helmet. It was found around 1864 or 1865 in a grave in Guilden Morden, a village in the eastern English county of Cambridgeshire. There, the boar attended a skeleton with other objects, including a small earthenware bead with an incised pattern, although the boar is all that now remains. Herbert George Fordham, whose father originally discovered the boar, donated it to the British Museum in 1904.
• Hurricane Fred (nominated by Hylian Auree) was the second hurricane and sixth named storm of the 2015 Atlantic hurricane season. Fred originated from a well-defined tropical wave over West Africa in late August 2015. Once offshore, the wave moved northwestward and strengthened into a tropical storm on August 30. The following day, Fred grew to a Category 1 hurricane with peak winds of 85 mph (140 km/h) as it approached Cape Verde. After passing Boa Vista and moving away from Santo Antão, it entered a phase of steady weakening, dropping below hurricane status by September 1.
• Manchester Cenotaph (nominated by HJ Mitchell) is a First World War memorial, with additions for later conflicts, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens for St Peter's Square in Manchester, England. The memorial was unveiled on 12 July 1924 by the Earl of Derby, assisted by Mrs Bingle, a local resident whose three sons had died in the war. It is a Grade II* listed structure and in 2015, Historic England recognised Manchester Cenotaph as part of a national collection of Lutyens' war memorials.
• The Battle of Groix (nominated by Jackyd101) was a large naval engagement which took place near the island of Groix off the Biscay coast of Brittany on 23 June 1795 (5 Messidor an III) during the French Revolutionary Wars. The battle was fought between elements of the British Channel Fleet and the French Atlantic Fleet, which were cruising in the region on separate missions. Three French ships were captured, all with very heavy casualties, and the remainder of the French fleet was left scattered across miles of coastline.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (nominated by TheJoebro64) is a 2006 action-adventure platform game developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles. A reboot of the Sonic the Hedgehog series, the game was produced in commemoration of the series' fifteenth anniversary. The story follows three hedgehogs—Sonic, Shadow, and Silver—who battle Solaris, an ancient evil pursued by Doctor Eggman. Gameplay is split into three separate campaigns for the hedgehogs, each of whom has its own unique abilities and must complete a series of levels to advance the story.
• Nights: Journey of Dreams (nominated by Jaguar) is an action video game developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega for the Wii. The sequel to the 1996 Sega Saturn title Nights into Dreams, it was released in Japan and North America in December 2007, and in Australia and Europe the following month. The story follows two children, Will and Helen, who enter a dream world called Nightopia. When their nightmares come to life, they enlist the help of Nights, an exiled "Nightmaren", as they journey through Nightopia to stop the evil ruler Wizeman from escaping into the real world..
• Amy Adams (nominated by Krimuk2.0) is an American actress. She is known for both her comedic and dramatic performances, and as of 2017, is among the highest-paid actresses in the world. She has received several awards, including two Golden Globe Awards, and has been nominated for five Academy Awards and six British Academy Film Awards. Her first major role came in Steven Spielberg's 2002 biopic Catch Me If You Can, opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, but she was unemployed for a year after. Her breakthrough came in the part of a loquacious pregnant woman in the 2005 independent film Junebug.
• The Rodrigues rail (Erythromachus leguati) (nominated by FunkMonk) is an extinct species of the rail family that was endemic to the Mascarene island of Rodrigues, east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. The Rodrigues rail was described as having grey plumage, a red beak, red legs, and a naked red patch around the eye. It was flightless, fed on tortoise eggs, and was described as being attracted to red objects, which humans exploited while hunting it. The Rodrigues rail is believed to have become extinct in the mid-18th century because of predation by introduced cats and destruction of its habitat by tortoise hunters.
• "Habits (Stay High)" (nominated by Paparazzzi) is a song recorded by Swedish singer Tove Lo from her debut extended play, Truth Serum, and her debut studio album, Queen of the Clouds (2014). It was written by Lo with Ludvig Söderberg and Jakob Jerlström, while it was produced by the latter two under the production name The Struts. Initially, the singer self-released the song under the title "Habits" on 15 March 2013; after Lo was signed to Universal Music, the track was re-released on 6 December 2013. Musically, it is a pop and electropop song which features a minimal and upbeat electronic instrumentation. Its lyrics delve into the singer's attempts to forget her previous boyfriend through substance abuse, drinking and other hedonistic practices.
• The S-50 (Manhattan Project) (nominated by Hawkeye7) was the Manhattan Project's effort to produce enriched uranium by liquid thermal diffusion during World War II. It was one of three technologies for uranium enrichment pursued by the Manhattan Project. The liquid thermal diffusion process was not one of the enrichment technologies initially selected for use in the Manhattan Project, and was developed independently by Philip H. Abelson and other scientists at the United States Naval Research Laboratory. This was primarily due to doubts about the process's technical feasibility, but inter-service rivalry between the United States Army and United States Navy also played a part.
• Spiro Agnew (nominated by Brianboulton) was the 39th Vice President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1973. He was the second and most recent vice president to resign the office, though unlike John C. Calhoun in 1832, Agnew left office in disgrace. Beginning in early 1973, Agnew was investigated by the United States Attorney for the District of Maryland on suspicion of conspiracy, bribery, extortion and tax fraud. After denying his guilt for months, Agnew negotiated a plea agreement that would involve his resignation from office. On October 10, 1973, Agnew pled no contest to a single felony charge of tax evasion, resigned his office, and was replaced by House Minority Leader Gerald Ford.
• Tukwila International Boulevard station (nominated by SounderBruce) is a light rail station in Tukwila, Washington, United States. It lies between SeaTac/Airport and Rainier Beach stations on the Central Link line from Seattle–Tacoma International Airport to Downtown Seattle. The station consists of two elevated side platforms enclosed in a structure northeast of the interchange of State Route 99 (International Boulevard) and State Route 518. As one of two park and rides along the line, it includes 662 parking spaces in three lots.
• The Fountainhead (nominated by RL0919) is a 1943 novel by Russian-American author Ayn Rand, her first major literary success. The novel's protagonist, Howard Roark, is an individualistic young architect who designs modernist buildings and refuses to compromise with an architectural establishment unwilling to accept innovation. Roark embodies what Rand believed to be the ideal man, and his struggle reflects Rand's belief that individualism is superior to collectivism.
• Achelousaurus (nominated by FunkMonk) is a genus of ceratopsid dinosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous Period of what is now North America, about 74.2 million years ago. The first fossils of Achelousaurus were collected in Montana in 1987, by a team led by Jack Horner, with more finds made in 1989. An average-sized centrosaurine, Achelousaurus was about 6 m (20 ft) long, with a weight of about 3 t (3.3 short tons). As a ceratopsian, it walked on all fours, had a short tail and a large head with a hooked beak. It had a bony neck-frill at the rear of the skull, which sported a pair of long spikes curving towards the outside.
• Casey Stengel (nominated by Wehwalt) was an American Major League Baseball right fielder and manager best known as the manager of both the championship New York Yankees of the 1950s, and later of the hapless expansion New York Mets. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966. Although Stengel is sometimes described as one of the great managers in major league history, others have contrasted his success during the Yankee years with his lack of success at other times, and concluded he was only a good manager when given good players.
• The Boat Races 2017 (nominated by The Rambling Man) Held annually, the Boat Race is a side-by-side rowing race between crews from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge along a 4.2-mile (6.8 km) tidal stretch of the River Thames in south-west London. For the second time in the history of the event, the men's, women's and both reserves' races were all held on the Tideway on the same day. The races were watched by around a quarter of a million spectators live, and were broadcast around the world by a variety of broadcasters. The two main races were also available for the first time as a live stream using YouTube.
• Alfred Shout (nominated by Abraham, B.S.) was a New Zealand-born soldier posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions at Lone Pine in August 1915, during the Gallipoli Campaign of the First World War. After Ottoman forces had counterattacked and seized a large stretch of the Australians' front line, Shout gathered a small party of men and charged down one trench throwing bombs. He managed to retake the trench, and in a similar action later that day, recaptured further ground. In the final push forward, Shout simultaneously lit three bombs to lob at the enemy. One burst just as it was leaving his hand. Shout was grievously wounded, and died two days later.
• The Balfour Declaration (nominated by Onceinawhile) was a public statement issued by the British government during World War I announcing support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a minority Jewish population. The declaration greatly increased popular support for Zionism, and led to the creation of Mandatory Palestine, which later became Israel and the Palestinian territories. As a result it is considered to have caused the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
• Operation Inmate (nominated by Nick-D) was an attack by the British Pacific Fleet against Japanese positions on Truk Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean during the Second World War. The attacks against the isolated islands on 14 and 15 June 1945 were conducted to provide combat experience for the aircraft carrier HMS Implacable and several of the fleet's cruisers and destroyers ahead of their involvement in more demanding operations off the Japanese home islands. The damage to the Japanese facilities in the atoll, which had been repeatedly attacked during 1944 and 1945, was modest.
• Mells War Memorial (nominated by HJ Mitchell) is a First World War memorial by Sir Edwin Lutyens in the village of Mells in the Mendip Hills of Somerset, south-western England. Unveiled in 1921, the memorial takes the form of a marble column topped by a sculpture of Saint George slaying a dragon, an image Lutyens used on two other public war memorials. At the base of the column, the names of the village's war dead are inscribed on stone panels. Additional panels were fixed to the wall after the Second World War to commemorate that conflict.
• The Coldrum Long Barrow (nominated by Midnightblueowl) is a chambered long barrow located near the village of Trottiscliffe in the south-eastern English county of Kent. Probably constructed in the fourth millennium BCE, during Britain's Early Neolithic period, today it survives only in a state of ruin. In local folklore, the site became associated with the burial of a prince and the countless stones motif. The ruin attracted the interest of antiquarians in the 19th century, while archaeological excavation took place in the early 20th. In 1926, ownership was transferred to heritage charity The National Trust.
• The black-necked grebe (Podiceps nigricollis) (nominated by RileyBugz) is a member of the grebe family of water birds. This species is present in parts of Africa, Eurasia, and the Americas. Although it generally avoids flight, the black-necked grebe travels as far as 6,000 kilometres (3,700 mi) during migration. In addition, it becomes flightless for two months after completing a migration to reach an area where it can safely moult. The migrations to reach these areas are dangerous, sometimes with thousands of grebe deaths. In spite of this, it is classified as a least concern species by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
• Craig Kieswetter (nominated by Harrias) is an English professional golfer and former cricketer who appeared in 71 matches for the England cricket team between 2010 and 2013. Born and raised in South Africa, Kieswetter moved to England to complete his education, and began playing county cricket for Somerset in 2007. Three years later, he made his international debut in a One Day International (ODI) against Bangladesh. A wicket-keeper batsman, he was considered a one-day specialist, and all his international appearances came in ODIs or Twenty20 Internationals.
• The northern rosella (Platycercus venustus) (nominated by Casliber) is a species of parrot native to northern Australia, ranging from the Gulf of Carpentaria and Arnhem Land to the Kimberley. It was described by Heinrich Kuhl in 1820, and two subspecies are recognised. The species is unusually coloured for a rosella, with a dark head and neck with pale cheeks. The northern rosella's mantle and scapulars are black with fine yellow scallops, while its back, rump and underparts are pale yellow with fine black scallops. The long tail is blue green and the wings are black and blue violet.
• Raymond Leane (nominated by Peacemaker67) was an Australian Army officer who rose to command the 48th Battalion then 12th Brigade during World War I. For his performance during the war, Leane was described by the Australian Official War Historian, Charles Bean, as "the foremost fighting leader" in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF), and "the head of the most famous family of soldiers in Australian history", among other accolades. After the war, he served as Commissioner of the South Australia Police from 1920 to 1944, for which he was knighted.
• Melanie Barnett (nominated by Aoba47) is a fictional character, portrayed by actress Tia Mowry, who appears in the American sitcom The Game. Melanie chooses to support her boyfriend Derwin Davis' (Pooch Hall) career with the San Diego Sabers, a fictional National Football League team, rather than attend medical school at Johns Hopkins University. The series focuses primarily on Melanie and Derwin's complicated relationship, with her fears of his infidelity at the center of many of the episodes' storylines.
• DJ AM (born Adam Michael Goldstein) (nominated by Freikorp) was an American disc jockey (DJ). Goldstein became obsessed with deejaying as a child after watching Herbie Hancock perform his 1983 single "Rockit". Goldstein developed a drug addiction as a teenager, and was addicted to crack cocaine for several years in his early twenties. Goldstein began deejaying in clubs in Los Angeles and joined the band Crazy Town in 1999. He left the group in 2001 and focused on a career as a solo DJ. On August 28, 2009, he was found dead in his New York City apartment from a drug overdose.
• Cleopatra Selene (nominated by Attar-Aram syria) was queen consort of Egypt and Syria then regent and queen regnant of Syria. In various political maneuvers, Cleopatra Selene married her two brothers, and married her two cousins (who were also brothers). She finally married her step-son and gave birth to two children, one of whom became king, with herself as co-ruler. Cleopatra Selene controlled several coastal towns until 69 BC, when she was besieged by Tigranes in Ptolemais; the Armenian king captured the queen and later executed her.
• Jean Bolikango (nominated by Indy beetle) was a prominent Congolese educator, writer, and conservative politician who enjoyed substantial popularity among the Bangala people. He served twice as Deputy Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then Republic of the Congo), in September 1960 and from February to August 1962. He headed the Parti de l'Unité Nationale and worked as a key opposition member in Parliament in the early 1960s.
• Cento Vergilianus de laudibus Christi (nominated by Gen. Quon) is a Latin poem which was arranged by Faltonia Betitia Proba c. AD 352–84 after her conversion to Christianity. A cento is a poetic work composed of verses or passages taken from other authors and re-arranged in a new order. This poem reworks verses extracted from the work of Virgil to tell stories from the Old and New Testament of the Christian Bible. Much of the work focusses on the story of Jesus Christ.
• Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball (nominated by Jaguar) is a pinball video game developed by the Sega Technical Institute and published by Sega. The game's plot revolves around series antagonist Doctor Robotnik's desire to enslave the population of planet Mobius via a machine powered by pinball-like mechanisms. The game is set in a series of pinball machine-like environments in which the player controls Sonic the Hedgehog, who acts as a pinball for the majority of the game.

24 featured lists were promoted.

• John Ford filmography (nominated by Jimknut)
• List of Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Northamptonshire (nominated by Dudley Miles)
• Serie A Coach of the Year (nominated by The Rambling Man)
• List of accolades received by Neerja (nominated by Mr. Smart LION)
• List of Hot Country Singles & Tracks number ones of 2000 (nominated by ChrisTheDude)
• Grade II* listed buildings in Sedgemoor (nominated by Rodw)
• Anushka Shetty filmography (nominated by Kailash29792)
• List of songs recorded by Led Zeppelin (nominated by BeatlesLedTV)
• Anne Hathaway on screen and stage (nominated by Krish!)
• 1924 Winter Olympics medal table (nominated by Harrias)
• Vera Farmiga on screen and stage (nominated by RedLiquorice)
• Val Barker Trophy (nominated by The Rambling Man)
• Robot Hall of Fame (nominated by Holiday56 and The Rambling Man)
• List of Metro (Minnesota) light rail stations (nominated by Bobamnertiopsis)
• Beyoncé videography (nominated by FrB.TG)
• Laureus World Sports Award for Sportswoman of the Year (nominated by The Rambling Man)
• List of centuries in Twenty20 International cricket (nominated by Ianblair23)
• List of songs recorded by She & Him (nominated by Damian Vo)
• List of Local Nature Reserves in Suffolk (nominated by Dudley Miles)
• Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize in Mathematics (nominated by Harrias)
• List of accolades received by Kaththi (nominated by Ssven2)
• M. G. Ramachandran filmography (nominated by Ssven2)
• List of accolades received by Dil Dhadakne Do (nominated by Krish!)
• IRPA Try of the Year (nominated by The Rambling Man)

Much of the existing Wikipedia research is based on the freely licensed datasets published by the Wikimedia Foundation: Content dumps, pageview numbers, Clickstream samples, etc. But some individual researchers are giving back too. An example for this is the TokTrack dataset, described in an accompanying paper^[1] as

"a dataset that contains every instance of all tokens (≈ words) ever written in undeleted, non-redirect English Wikipedia articles until October 2016, in total 13,545,349,787 instances. Each token is annotated with (i) the article revision it was originally created in, and (ii) lists with all the revisions in which the token was ever deleted and (potentially) re-added and re-deleted from its article, enabling a complete and straightforward tracking of its history."

Tracking authorship and provenance of Wikipedia article text is by no means a new topic (see e.g. meta:Research:Content persistence). However, the paper's authors assert that their method provides much higher accuracy than earlier efforts such as Wikitrust. One of them, Fabian Flöck, has been studying this problem with other researchers for years (cf. our coverage from 2012 and 2014: "Precise and efficient attribution of authorship of revisioned content", "Better authorship detection, and measuring inequality", "New algorithm provides better revert detection"; the present dataset is generated by their "Wikiwho" algorithm, which also underlies a browser extension called "Whocolor").

What's more, the paper points out that "this data would be exceedingly hard to create by an average potential user" for the entire English Wikipedia due to the computational effort involved ("around 25 days on a dedicated Ubuntu Server [...] with 122 GB RAM and 20 cores"; for comparison, a community-created tool, "WikiBlame", which is linked from every revision history page on English Wikipedia, can take several minutes to find the provenance of an individual token in a single article).

After describing the dataset and the underlying methodology, the paper also briefly presents some insights that can be derived from it about the history of English Wikipedia. First, it looks at the number of added and surviving tokens over time, observing that

"the rapid growth in added tokens leveled off around the beginning of 2007, and transformed into a slight decline before recovering towards the middle of 2014. [...] the ratio of newly added content that was good or uncontentious enough to survive 48 hours exhibits a (mostly) continuous decrease from 2001 until 2007, coinciding with the change in total added content, then stabilizes and even begins to slightly climb again until recently."

It highlights "a surprising spike in Oct. 2002 (also in absolute additions)". Although not mentioned in the paper, this is very likely the effect of bot contributions by User:Ram-Man of US geographical content. Figure 2(b) in the paper also seems to indicate that more than half of these October 2002 additions were still live 14 years later.

Analyzing the "persisting" tokens (that had not been removed within 48 hours) by user group, the authors observe:

"While it seems that the addition of persisting tokens of unregistered editors has become comparably stable since 2006, it has not been keeping up by far with the enormous increase by registered editors, which make up for over 80% of all added surviving content for most months since 2007. In fact, a small group of registered users generates the vast majority of sustained content [...]. Bots showed an increased presence from mid-2007 until 2013, when, presumably by the migration of inter-language links to Wikidata, the demand for bot-created content dropped."

The remainder of the paper uses the dataset to study editing controversies. First, the authors define two measures of how controversial an article is, both yielding evolution, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Bob Dylan (in that order) as the three most controversial articles as of October 2016 (based on the surviving content at that time only). They also find that "barneys" was the top most conflicted string token.

Lastly, they examine the frequency of edits that undo other edits partially or totally, where the token-based data enables a more sophisticated approach than simpler types of revert analysis. They find that

"in total, 61.51% of all edits included some kind of removal or reinsertion of content (i.e., 38.49% revisions purely added content), and in 14.62% of the revisions editors correct their own edits. 14.84% of all revisions fully undid another revision and 50.65% did so partially."

However, they caution that since "content added by one revision can over (a long) time be corroded by many small changes [...] 'revert' cannot per se be equated with antagonism here, as these numbers include the complete spectrum from minor corrections to full-on opinion clashes and vandal fighting."

See the research events page on Meta-wiki for upcoming conferences and events, including submission deadlines.

Other recent publications that could not be covered in time for this issue include the items listed below. contributions are always welcome for reviewing or summarizing newly published research.

• "Public artworks and the freedom of panorama controversy: a case of Wikimedia influence"^[2] From the abstract: "Freedom of panorama, an exception to copyright law, is the legal right, in some countries, to publish pictures of artworks which are in public space. A controversy emerged at the time of the discussions towards the revision of the 2001 European Copyright Directive [...]. The article decrypts the legal framework and political implications of a topic which has been polarising copyright reform lobbyists, and analyses its development within the public debate since the XIXth century." From the paper: "The analysis of the media and the lobbying campaign reveal that the main actors of the debate are collecting societies, whose revenues would be affected should the exception become compulsory, or larger. The users’ side, the analysis finds, is mainly represented by Wikipedia, an organisation at the forefront of the campaign and therefore also of this paper. While other stakeholders of the online space are affected by this legal prerogative, neither social media platforms, nor the press, chose to join the campaign towards a new or broader exception."
• "Analysing temporal evolution of interlingual Wikipedia article pairs"^[3] From the abstract: "...we present MultiWiki online demo – a novel web-based user interface that provides an overview of the similarities and differences across the article pairs originating from different language editions on a timeline. MultiWiki enables users to observe the changes in the interlingual article similarity over time and to perform a detailed visual comparison of the article snapshots at a particular time point."
• "A productive clash of perspectives? The interplay between articles’ and authors’ perspectives and their impact on Wikipedia edits in a controversial domain"^[4] From the abstract: "We chose a corpus of articles in the German-language version of Wikipedia about alternative medicine as a representative controversial issue. We extracted edits made until March 2013 and categorized them using a supervised machine learning setup as either being pro conventional medicine, pro alternative medicine, or neutral."
• "Glaring chemical errors persist for years on Wikipedia"^[5] From the abstract: "Though Wikipedia does not require the vetting of submitted material, it is undoubtedly a major resource for the 21st century chemist. Unfortunately, many errors in chemical structure are present in Wikipedia chemistry articles. Even when these mistakes are discovered and reported, articles are sometimes subsequently left uncorrected. In order to be a more useful resource, particularly for undergraduate learning, Wikipedia depends on timely fact-checking and editing by the chemical community."
• "Emotional content in Wikipedia articles on negative man-made and nature-made events"^[6] From the abstract: "... we expected that Wikipedia articles on terrorist attacks contain more anger-related and less sadness-related content than articles on earthquakes. We analyzed newly created Wikipedia articles about the two events (Study 1) as well as more current versions of those Wikipedia articles after the events had already happened (Study 2). The results supported our expectations. Surprisingly, Wikipedia articles on those two events contained more emotional content than related Wikipedia talk pages."
• "Powerful structure: inspecting infrastructures of information organization in Wikimedia Foundation projects"^[7] From the abstract: "This dissertation ... analyzes the diverse strategies that members of Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) project communities use to organize information. Key findings from this dissertation show that conceptual structures of information organization are encoded into the infrastructure of WMF projects. [...]. I use three methods in this dissertation. I conduct a qualitative content analysis of the discussions surrounding the design, implementation and evaluation of the category system; a quantitative analysis using descriptive statistics of patterns of editing among editors who contributed to the code of templates for information boxes; and a close reading of the infrastructure used to create the category system, the infobox templates, and the knowledge base of structured data."
• "Implementation and evaluation of a framework to calculate impact measures for Wikipedia authors"^[8] From the abstract: " ...ranking Wikipedia authors by calculating impact measures based on the edit history can help to identify reputational users or harmful activity such as vandalism .... However, processing millions of edits on one system can take a long time. The author implements an open source framework to calculate such rankings in a distributed way (MapReduce) and evaluates its performance on various sized datasets."
• "280 birds with one stone: inducing multilingual taxonomies from Wikipedia using character-level classification"^[9] From the abstract: " Given an English taxonomy, our approach leverages the interlanguage links of Wikipedia followed by character-level classifiers to induce high-precision, high-coverage taxonomies in other languages. Through experiments, we demonstrate that our approach significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art, heuristics-heavy approaches for six languages. As a consequence of our work, we release presumably the largest and the most accurate multilingual taxonomic resource spanning over 280 languages."
• "Estimating the quality of articles in Russian Wikipedia using the logical-linguistic model of fact extraction"^[10]From the abstract: "We present the method of estimating the quality of articles in Russian Wikipedia that is based on counting the number of facts in the article. For calculating the number of facts we use our logical-linguistic model of fact extraction. [...] We experimentally compare the effect of the density of these types of facts on the quality of articles in Russian Wikipedia. Better articles tend to have a higher density of facts."

Please assume that all this content was created and edited in good faith. There is no need to disparage the efforts of well-meaning contributors to the encyclopedia. And some editors do not have a full grasp of the English language. You can't read the following content without multiple question marks appearing over your head (assuming that you are a cartoon character) and we often take ourselves too seriously. Some readers may be appalled that such content exists for the whole world to see on their cell phones, but so it goes. Reading Wikipedia for its entertainment value is a hobby of some (author included) and for the rest of you, well, you just don't get it. See if you can guess the article.