WMF expansion, community hires, award for MediaWiki, admin recall
Plans for major expansions of the WMF
The Wikimedia Foundation's 2010–11 annual plan has been approved by the Board and was publicly posted on June 29. The plan draws from the year-long strategic planning project that ran from July 2009 to July 2010, and "is markedly more ambitious than in previous years, [as] justified by the quality of data and analysis and discussion that underpin the new strategy."
This year, the Foundation is aiming to spend as much money as it raises (projected to be $20.4 million), in contrast with previous years, when it has always run a surplus. The graph shows both the secure financial position of the organization, and the significant rise in its expenditure, which has virtually doubled annually over the past two years.
As detailed in the plan, the Foundation plans to add 44 new positions to its staff within the next year (currently, it employs around 40 people). These new positions are discussed at length, among other topics, in the "Questions and answers" for the plan.
The votes on the Board resolution approving the plan mirrored those of the Board's approval of a preliminary version of the 2010–15 plan back in April (see last week's "News and notes"): All trustees voted in favor except two of the three community-elected members – Mindspillage abstained, and Sj opposed, arguing "that we should define crisply why a larger Foundation is important to the Projects, grow smoothly rather than surge and taper off, and prepare specifically for the internal and cultural stresses that can accompany rapid change, before doubling in a year".
In a discussion on Phoebe Ayer's blog involving several staff and Board members, Board member Jan-Bart demonstrated awareness for such concerns: "both Sue and the board share the understanding that we have a very ambitious annual plan for 2010–2011, but that we should continue to monitor all the aspects that influence this plan (questions such as: are we able to hire the right people?, are we not growing too fast?, are we not losing touch within the office with some of our roots?, are we able to raise enough funds? etc.)."
New Community Department to hire community members
As The Signpost reported last month, the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Department has been formed to combine Fundraising, Reader relations, Public outreach and volunteer coordination under the incoming Chief Community Officer Zack Exley. The Department has now announced that it "will be hiring for a series of key positions". Specific job descriptions are not yet available, but informal applications are already invited from:
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Authored by Exley, the invitation seems to aim at recruiting for analytical work: candidates should be "creative non-linear thinkers" who "have their own opinions and theories on various problems and opportunities facing Wikimedia and other online communities" and are "equally strong dealing with qualitative and quantitative knowledge".
Apparently as a test of candidates' familiarity with Wikimedia projects (or their ability to gain it quickly), the form asks applicants to "describe the process in which users are approved to become administrators on [the] English Wikipedia".
Also last week, it was announced that two members of the fundraising team (which is part of the Community Department) will be leaving the Foundation: Rand Montoya, Head of Community Giving since July 2008, will leave on September 30 ([1]), and Anya Shyrokova, Stewardship Associate, will leave at the end of July to take up graduate studies ([2]).
USENIX award for MediaWiki software
At the USENIX association's recent Annual Technical Conference in Boston, USA, the MediaWiki software and the Wikimedia Foundation were the recipients of the STUG (Software Tools User Group) award. The announcement said:
| “ | [We] know that this wonderful piece of code did not just appear. The ideas behind them were not new, but a few people had to come forward to implement a wiki that could underlie a real scalable, worldwide service. That service was MediaWiki. It took a community to collaborate, putting in many many hours of work to make the idea great and make it lasting. We recognize Magnus Manske, Lee Crocker, Brion Vibber, and Tim Starling as the major contributors to MediaWiki, but we all realize that their work has been refined and improved by many others. MediaWiki is a wonderful example of a software tool that changed our world. | ” |
Admin recalled
Discussions about a possible mandatory recall process for administrators have been going on for some time – one possibility that received majority support in a November 2009 poll was made into a policy proposal that then failed to gain consensus in a March 2010 RfC.
A focal point for the debate was recently provided when an administrator, Herostratus, voluntarily submitted to a recall process in the form of an RFA. The result of the RFA was unsuccessful, and led to Herostratus's resignation from adminship. The recall process was initiated when he posted a survey on his talk page soliciting input with respect to users' complaints. Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Herostratus 2 was opened by the candidate once his criteria for initiating recall (mostly taken from this sample process) were satisfied. This RFA was a significant event, with discussion ranging over many noticeboards ([1], [2]), including "Some philosophical thoughts" from Jimbo. At one point, the recall RFA was closed as "out of process"; however, the closure was reverted three hours later with the comment "if this is to be closed, dubious reasons should not be used" ([3]).
Opposition to Herostratus centered around what were perceived as disparaging comments about living people on an AFD debate and for inappropriate humor. Supporters pointed out that his use of the admin tools themselves was exemplary; but the idea that administrators should follow a higher level of decorum carried the RFA through and the final tally was 78/48/21, a ratio at which a standard RFA would have probably failed. Herostratus then requested removal of his admin rights at meta "under a cloud". In his final statement on the matter, Herostratus stated: "The system worked and worked fine, notwithstanding that I don't agree with the result."
Briefly
- On his blog, User:Witty lama (Liam Wyatt) looked back at his month-long stay at the British Museum as "Wikipedian in residence" (see previous story). He will present results of the stay at Wikimania.
- In a post titled Skillshare – The Slightly Different Open Content Event on the Foundation's blog, an organizer of a conference that gathered more than 150 Wikipedians in Germany last month described the event. She noted its novel funding model – while the German, Austrian and Swiss Wikimedia chapters offered some financial means, "local businesses and associations contributed the bulk of the funds." A separate organization (Skillshare e.V.) was set up to organize the event.
- Wikimania 2010 begins this week in Gdańsk, Poland; see the special story in this week's Signpost.
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Accidentally anonymized donation, democratized learning and more
Million-dollar donation misattributed
Last week a Digg.com submission showing a screenshot of the recent fundraiser's donation log gained prominence. It appeared to show a million-dollar donation coming from an anonymous source; Paul McNamara of Network World, however, investigated thinking that "a million smackaroos from a benefactor too shy to even accept a public thank-you" ([4]) seemed unlikely. It has now transpired that the donation was actually the third installment of the three million dollars over the three-year grant from the Alfred P. Sloan foundation (see previous Signpost coverage). The mistake in attribution has since been fixed (see log: [5]).
"Is globally democratized learning always a good thing?"
Wikipedia featured in an article written by Ben Wildavsky for The Chronicle of Higher Education, which asked the question, "Is globally democratized learning always a good thing?". In introducing the topic, Wildavsky said "At the Wilson Center discussion, former University of Michigan president James Duderstadt ticked off a long list of transformative technologies and modes of learning that seem destined to reshape postsecondary instruction globally ... Along with open courseware initiatives, ranging from iTunes University to Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative, he cited Google’s Library Project; Wikipedia; Facebook [and others.] The upshot, he declared, will be 'a new form of collective human intelligence, as billions of world citizens interact together, unconstrained by today's monopolies of knowledge or learning opportunities.' ... the things Wikipedia gets wrong are far less striking than how much it gets right."
Wildavsky went on to discuss some of the concerns with "democratized" learning: "Peer learning has its place, but the wisdom of crowds isn't always, well, wise."
Briefly
- Apparently spammers have been sending out "large numbers" of emails that purport to be requests to users to confirm their Wikipedia account, with links to malware sites, The H Security reports.
- PanARMENIAN.Net notes that "Wikipedia Arbitration Committee bans 26 Baku wikipedians’ activity" on the Russian Wikipedia. The sanction was for coordinated editing.
- Serbian broadcaster B92 reported on complaints of homophobia against the Serbian Wikipedia by an organization called Gay and Lesbian Info Center (GLIC), made after the article about it had been deleted ("Gay organization's page removed from website"). User:Millosh (Miloš Rančić) from Wikimedia Serbia rejected the accusations, noting that the organization was just one year old and had been deleted as non-notable, while articles about other, notable LGBT organizations remain.
- American singer-songwriter Katy Perry used the Internet to research which rapper she wanted to collaborate with on her new single – and chose Snoop Dogg after reading his entry on Wikipedia", the World Entertainment News Network notes (via the Toronto Sun).
- Canadian-American humorist and Emmy-Award-winning playwright and screenwriter David Rakoff was asked about his Wikipedia page in a recent Ohio State University radio interview. He replied that "it's as though you had gone to someone's home for brunch, and you went to the bathroom and you took a wrong turn and you went into a room and all the walls are plastered with surveillance photos of you, [and] severed chicken feet and bloody messages on the wall" (17 mins, 15 s). The article has since undergone a major pruning by Wikipedia editors.
- Last week's "In the news" reported on English journalist James Delingpole's complaints about his Wikipedia article, and noted that Jimmy Wales had acknowledged one of them on the article's talk page. In a subsequent blog post, Delingpole noted the Signpost article and, while upholding other criticism of Wikipedia, appreciated that his Wikipedia biography had been modified: "thanks Jimmy Wales. Much appreciated. You’re a gent."
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Gearing up for Wikimania in Gdańsk
This year's Wikimania, the sixth annual conference on Wikimedia projects, will take place from July 9–11 in the Baltic Philharmonic in Gdańsk, Poland.
Below are a few highlights from the schedule, with an emphasis on topics that Signpost readers might recognize from earlier issues. There is a separate overview Wikimania 2010 for Developers in our "Technology Report" this week.
Among the novelties this year will be a 15-minute Wikimania Madness session at the beginning of each day, where speakers can give a 30-second preview of their presentation. Also different from previous Wikimanias was the open Call for Participation process, where interested attendees could comment on submissions while they were being selected for the program, and also sign up for a talk to indicate they are interested in attending it. A byproduct of this is the list of submissions sorted by number of interested attendees. While the numbers are not necessarily precise, the list provides some insight into what might be the most popular topics:
Currently, the presentation Conflicts between chapters and communities (Saturday) is at the top of that list; the speaker, Harel – a bureaucrat on the Hebrew Wikipedia – will examine the relationship of that project to Wikimedia Israel, as well as examples from other countries such as Germany. Also, many users have signed up as interested attendees for From Russia with love and squalor, an overview of the Russian Wikipedia, and for the panel Allow, invite, encourage: growing Wikimedia in the world (both on Saturday).
Several Foundation employees will talk about the usability initiative on Friday, in a presentation and a panel which might also touch some questions about the relationship between the community and staff developers that were raised last month in the debate about the display of Interwiki links (see Signpost coverage).
In Saturday's presentation Google translation, a Google employee will talk about the company's effort to use its machine translation software to increase Wikipedia content in languages such as Swahili, where it held a contest among university students (see Signpost coverage: February 2010 and November 2009).
Saturday will see two invited talks, by Felipe Ortega and Erik Möller: first, Ortega's talk Flagged revisions study results will present findings from an ongoing study commissioned by Wikimedia Germany (see Signpost coverage: Research group to evaluate impact of flagged revisions on German Wikipedia). Ortega is a Wikipedia researcher whose statistical research prompted media coverage and community discussions about the sustainability of Wikipedia communities last year (see Signpost coverage). Second, Möller's presentation Beyond the Encyclopedia: The frontiers of free knowledge will be a follow-up on Ten things that will be free, Jimmy Wales' keynote speech at Wikimania 2005.
The three hour Video Workshop on Saturday joins Michael Dale, who has been working on MediaWiki's video capabilities since 2008 (sponsored by Kaltura), with a representative of the "Let’s Get Video on Wikipedia" campaign launched in March by the Open Video Alliance (see Signpost coverage) and several others.
On Saturday evening, there will be a screening of Truth in numbers, a documentary about Wikipedia whose completion has long been awaited (at Wikimania 2007, a trailer and some clips were shown, and the New York Times reported that the filmmaker had already spent a "year filming Mr. Wales as he traveled around the world" by then. A Wikipedia article about the film had existed for years and was finally deleted in December 2009 after several deletion discussions).
The Outreach session on Sunday will feature a presentation about the Foundation's Public Policy initiative, which also introduced itself in last week's Signpost.
Also on Sunday, Benjamin Mako Hill (a Wikimedia Foundation advisory board member), Ortega and Mayo Fuster Morell will present The State of Wikimedia Scholarship 2009-2010, "a quick tour of scholarship and academic research over the last year that has focused on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects" (intending it to become an annual Wikimania tradition). Ortega will focus on published results from WikiSym, the academic conference on wikis (held in Gdansk just before Wikimania), where he is Program Chair.
The program will also feature poster sessions and an "Unconference", which will include lightning talks.
This year, the Wikimania-l mailing list saw more than the usual share of complaints about delays and other organizational issues (even the Wikimedia Foundation's executive director observed that "Wikimania in Gdansk this year has had some problems", in the context of a recent discussion of establishing a permanent Wikimania oversight committee on the Foundation-l mailing list). However, several volunteers have worked hard in recent weeks to fix these issues, and all major problems seem to have been resolved at this stage.
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WikiProject Children's Literature
- The WikiProject Universities Collaborations of the Month for July are the University of Wales, Lampeter and the Annapolis Group
- The new WikiProject Feminism is looking for members
- The Guild of Copy Editors' July Backlog Elimination Drive is in full swing with over 90 participants signed up
This week we chatted with WikiProject Children's literature, which includes literature written for children and young adults. The project has 22 FAs, 41 GAs, and maintain a Portal. The project's members are working on reducing the number of unreferenced BLPs. We asked Plad2, Strdst grl, Rock drum, Awadewit and Sillybillypiggy about the inner workings of this project which covers over 11,000 articles.
Awadewit joined WikiProject Children's literature in 2007, while Plad2 and Strdst grl joined in 2008; Sillybillypiggy and Rock drum joined this year. Rock drum noted that the main challenge that the project has met was a lack of active members. Plad2 mentioned a career in book publishing as the motivation for contributing, and Strdst grl stumbled upon the project while working on Daughter of the Lioness, finding that she "often prefers to make project[-related] edits, like [working at] the Assessment Department." Rock drum added "most of my contributions had been to do with Children's literature-related topics", and even starting a task force. Awadewit, a graduate student writing a dissertation on 18th-century British children's literature, reveals that Children's literature-related topics are the area of her expertise.
The Signpost asked the project about their most pressing needs: Rock drum told us about the large backlog of unassessed articles, and the need for stub-expansion. Plad2 added that a larger group of active editors would be helpful, and reminded potential members to introduce themselves and focus on a topic, whether a category (Awadewit suggests working on articles about book illustrators) or a specific author. We also queried the project on their short and long-term goals, and Strdst grl would like to see a more active membership and the completion of the assessment backlog over the next few months." In addition, Strdst grl pointed out, "A recent proposal for a job centre to formalise and expand the project tasks is still under discussion, and I think it could lead to some interesting developments."
WikiProject Children's literature covers about 12,000 articles. Out of those, the project has 21 FA-class articles, 2 FL-class articles, 1 A-class article, and 42 GA-class articles. Awadewit has written 8 of the FAs, 4 of the GAs, and has helped with many of the others, stating "For me, writing FAs or GAs is almost second-nature, since I am an academic (see this interview about featured article writing); I am lucky that my "real job" overlaps so much with what is required for an FA/GA." Awadewit also commented on how "wonderfully collaborative" children's literature editors on Wikipedia are, adding "I recently created an article on an obscure 18th-century publisher of children's literature, John Marshall. No substantive information was easily available about him on the internet and I wanted to rectify this by creating his Wikipedia entry. So, I created this start-class article. A few days later, the article was already greatly expanded to its present, much-improved state by Das48. Now, there is a fully-referenced, well-written article on this publisher freely available to the world."
The project has about 1,000 unassessed articles, and we wondered whether the project had any plans to clear the backlog. Strdst grl put this in perspective: "the backlog originated from a one-off bot tagging in early March. After the tagging, there were nearly 4000 unassessed articles in the backlog. Three months later, the backlog is less than half that – 1700 as I write this, and decreasing every day. Patience and hard work is all it takes." Plad2 adds that there's "a steady (though small) number added every week by AlexNewArtBot" but "generally the backlog is dropping." Awadewit decided "to play devil's advocate", stating "I do not feel that assessing articles is important. The bulk of Wikipedia users do not understand our assessment system, so it is really for ourselves. If we think of an assessment system that is for ourselves rather than for the public, I think something simpler and automated could be devised, a system that simply differentiated first between stubs and everything else and then between referenced and unreferenced articles and then, finally, between reviewed and unreviewed. These are the most important things we want to know about an article."
The new rules on unreferenced BLPs have sent some projects into "a state of nervous excitement or confusion", so we asked the project about their efforts. Plad2 gave a "similar answer" to Strdst's on the backlog of unassessed articles, pointing out that "[we] just plugged away at the list of UBLPs until they were done. The principles are straightforward and reasonable. We have a regular report which currently lists only 4 UBLPs." Plad2 added, "I dismayed by the mass deletions at the beginning of the year, especially when I spotted a couple of totally non-controversial classic children's author biographies on the lists."
Conclusively, Awadewit think[s] "that articles on children's literature provide a wonderful opportunity for teaching with Wikipedia. Our articles could use a lot of improvement and many students, at all levels, could use lessons in how to write clear prose and do careful research. I never tire of telling English professors how excited Wikipedians of all ages were to read literary criticism about Harry Potter." Strdst grl finished the interview with "children's literature is really a topic which everyone has some basis in, and we are always looking for more people to help out."
Join us next week when we'll "keep the doctor away" with style. Until then, feel free to touch on some of our previous interviews in the archive.
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This week's highlights
Featured articles
Thirteen articles were promoted to featured status:
- Plesiorycteropus, nominated by Ucucha, who described the creature as "Madagascar's most special mammal".
- Hoover Dam, nominated by Wehwalt and NortyNort, who said it "has taken hold of the American psyche in a way few other engineering works have." The 75th anniversary of its dedication is in September.
- Royal Gold Cup (Johnbod), about a major masterpiece of medieval metalwork in the British Museum, some 2 kg (more than 4 lbs) of solid gold, with spectacular enamel decoration.
- Chetco River (LittleMountain5), a small stream that cascades down the picturesque and geologically complex Klamath Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Several months ago, this article was a four-paragraph stub with just two references.
- I. M. Pei (Scartol, with assistance by Awadewit and Elekhh), on the Chinese-American architect who is often referred to as a master of modern architecture.
- Bombing of Yawata (June 1944) (Nick-D), on the first raid conducted by land-based bombers against Japan during World War II.
- USS Indiana (BB-1) (Yoenit), the first "real" US battleship, and like the previous entry, another article just out of the Milhist A-class review.
- Banksia violacea (Casliber), a small shrub or tree from Western Australia.
- The Political Cesspool (Stonemason89), a weekly right-wing American talk-radio show.
The Royal Gold Cup: Saint Agnes appears to her friends in a vision. - Norton Priory (Peter I. Vardy), an historic site in Norton, Runcorn, Cheshire, England, dating from the 12th to the 16th centuries.
- School Rumble (Jinnai), a Japanese Shōnen manga.
- CFM International CFM56 (SidewinderX), an aircraft engine with "a rather interesting history".
- GRB 970228 (Cryptic C62), a highly luminous flash of gamma rays that struck the Earth for 80 seconds in 1997. The Signpost was surprised to see a discussion involving complex mathematical equations on the review page.
Choice of the week: The Signpost asked reviewer/nominator Casliber for his number-one choice among these FA promotions. He picked Royal Gold Cup: "It came together very nicely, and is such an interesting one to read. This is the first nomination to qualify for the Wikipedia:GLAM/British Museum's joint Featured Article Prize, and we look forward to seeing more of these." (See Signpost coverage of the British Museum collaboration).
Four featured articles were demoted:
Featured lists
Eight lists were promoted to featured status:
- List of number-one singles from the 1970s (UK) (nominated by Rambo's Revenge)
- List of Madonna concert tours (Legolas)
- Hugo Award for Best Novelette (PresN) – The Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year.
- Army of the Danube order of battle (auntiruth), a field army of the First French Republic.
- Paramore discography (Decodet), of the American alternative rock band.
- Pet Shop Boys discography (Mister sparky), of the English electronic/pop music duo.
- 2009 College Football All-America Team (TonyTheTiger)
- Minister of Transport and Communications (Norway) (Arsenikk)
Choice of the week: We asked Dabomb87, a director of the featured list process, for his personal choices. "My favorite was 2009 College Football All-America Team – I'm a fan of American football, and the extended lead makes this article interesting; as well, the references make it a valuable resource. Second for me was List of number-one singles from the 1970s (UK) – I had nostalgic memories of old cassette tapes in my parents' house reading through this list and seeing some of my favorite songs (ABBA, especially). Good supplementary text and images, and good use of color in the main table."
One list was demoted: List of popes (graphical)
Featured pictures
- Cypripedium acaule (author Sasata), in which reviewers liked the relationship between the two neighbouring flowers and the background; the image was brightened after reviewers' comments.
- Eastern Great Egret (author Noodle snacks), praised by reviewers for its resolution and depth of field.
- Paper autofluorescence (author Zephyris), a micrograph of tissue paper, illuminated by ultraviolet light. The image is a composite of nine images stitched together, captured through a blue filter to block direct illumination. The individual fibres are ~10 μm wide, a fraction of the width of human hair.
- Laughing Kookaburra, (author Noodle snacks), the subject described as "one weird bird" by a reviewer. The Signpost can confirm that these birds emit sounds akin to theatrical laughter.
- Baalbek Temple Complex (author Eusebius), a panoramic view of the Great Court of Baalbek temple complex in Lebanon (pictured below).
- CTA Control Tower 18 and loop junction, Chicago (author Dschwen).
- Portrait of Mark Rutte (author Nick van Ormondt, nom J Milburn).
- Big White Fog (author Works Progress Administration, restored by Jujutacular), a 1938 poster for the eponymous play.
Choice of the week: Raeky, a regular reviewer at featured picture candidates, told The Signpost, "My favorite was the panoramic view of the Great Court of Baalbek temple complex in Lebanon. Panoramas of this size, I believe, are a prime example of how photography makes an article come to life. This one allows the viewer to delve into an area in a way that a simple snapshot can't do." The image appears at the bottom of this page. Raeky has a helpful hint, too: "Readers might be interested in a feature that lets you easily navigate through these large images on almost any connection: interactive flash viewer."
Featured topics
Three topics were promoted:
- 2006 Pacific hurricane season, with 19 articles
- M-28 (Michigan highway), with four articles
- Bayern class battleships, with three articles
Today's featured articles
This week, among the highlights on the Main Page were those on the best, the biggest, and the greatest:
- Mariano Rivera, the Panamanian right-handed baseball pitcher, born 1969 and known for his the "all-time great" fastball pitch.
- Sirius, the binary star – the brightest in the night sky – of which Sirius A is twice as massive as the Sun.
- The South American Andean Condor, the largest flying land bird in the Western Hemisphere.
- History of the Grand Canyon area, which, as we know it, stretches back 10,500 years to the first evidence of a human presence in the area.
Picture of the day
Aside from the image above, the pictures of the day included:
- A close-up of Cortinarius archeri, a truffle-like species of mushroom.
- An 1881 editorial cartoon of Charles J. Guiteau, the lawyer who assassinated President James A. Garfield on 2 July 1881.
- A photochrom print of the USS Texas (1892), the first US Navy battleship.
- A panoramic shot of the skyline of Philadelphia.
- A close-up of the "Whirling Butterflies" cultivar of a Gaura lindheimeri plant, native to Texas and Louisiana.
Administrators
No editors were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process.
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Arbitration Report
The Arbitration Committee opened no cases this week, leaving two open.
Open cases
- Climate change (Week 4): The case resulted from several Arbitration requests on the same topic matter being merged into one case, and a related request for comment on the matter failing to make headway. Special rules of conduct were put in place for this arbitration and a brief extension was granted earlier this week to submit last-minute evidence, but this phase has now closed. Currently in the workshop phase.
- Race and intelligence (Week 5): This case concerns accusations of incivility, disruptive editing, and tag-teaming to control the content on articles related to race and intelligence. As reported in last week's Signpost, a proposed decision was expected by the end of June, but the drafting arbitrator failed to meet this expectation. More delays are expected as another arbitrator is now expected to ask the parties questions while the evidence phase has not been closed. Still in the evidence/workshop phase.
Motions
- Eastern European mailing list: A motion was passed – the case remedy that banned Biruitorul from editing the Eastern Europe topic is no longer in force.
- Tothwolf: A motion was passed to impose an enforceable 6-month civility restriction on JBsupreme – this replaces the earlier case remedy that warned him about incivility.
- Pseudoscience: A motion was passed to remove the effect of the words "Time Cube" from this 2006 decision that was drafted by Fred Bauder. A successful argument was made that other than being unnecessary in the relevant principle and finding of fact, such "throwaway remarks" foreclosed any discussion concerning "whether or not Time Cube is pseudoscience".
Other
- Community voting in the immediate options poll appears to have come to a halt in the review into CheckUser and Oversight selection. As reported earlier, this review was opened after the Arbitration Committee declared that the outcome of the May 2010 CheckUser and Oversight elections was "not satisfactory".
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Bugs, repairs, and internal operational news
Power outage
On the Wikimedia Techblog, Mark Bergsma explained the root of problems users encountered the morning of Monday, July 5:
| “ | Starting at 0:10 UTC on July 5th, the Wikimedia Foundation suffered from intermittent, partial power failures in the internal power network of one of its main data centers in Tampa, Florida. Due to the temporary unavailability of several critical systems and the large impact on the available systems capacity, all Wikimedia projects went down. The power situation stabilized at 1:12 UTC, and systems and services recovery has been taking place since. | ” |
Fortunately, the technicians managed to get everything back up and running shortly afterwards.
Brion Vibber on the future role of the WMF
Following a blog post by Phoebe about Wikimedia's future strategies, Brion Vibber left a detailed comment giving his thoughts. As a former Chief Technical Officer (CTO) and all-round maintainer of Wikimedia projects and the software behind them for a number of years – not to mention the namesake of this report – his thoughts provided a useful insight into the past, present and future of the Wikimedia Foundation's "tech" department:
| “ | Tech of course is the area I know best, and I can assure you that there will be plenty of work for [the projected] ~75 tech folks to do in 2015; even with the major expansion over the last couple years there’s still wayyy more stuff to do than time to do it. Purely on that end, there are a few rough tasks that need to get taken care of all the time:
... A strong “MediaWiki Labs” [as a parallel to Mozilla Labs] research program would be *extremely* awesome, and well worth the money spent, once the resources and organization are all in there to get all the basics past "we keep the site up" and "we’re fixing things we’ve known suck" into really future-focused areas too. From what I see and hear, Danese [Cooper, current CTO] is doing a smashing job at getting tech organized for its big-enough-to-need-real-management present and future, so as long as the rest of the system is working I feel pretty good about the next few years of Wikimedia tech. |
” |
The full comment is available here. Regular Signpost readers will be pleased to know that an interview with Danese Cooper – to whom Brion referred – should be available shortly.
Wikimania 2010 for Developers
Wikimania 2010, in Gdansk, Poland, opens on July 9. It is scheduled to include a number of talks, workshops and tutorials useful to developers. One session From WMF with love, expressly aimed at the technically minded, is scheduled for Sunday. Its programme comprises:
- "Wikimedia's mobile and offline initiatives",
- "Performance, scalability and security for extension developers" and
- "Wikimedia Germany's software and infrastructure projects".
The session For developers: free software, batch uploading, mobiles is set to include:
- "How we make Wiki use in mobiles friendly",
- "Free software for users" and
- "Batch uploading at Commons".
These are in addition to a wide range of other talks arranged for the long weekend, which is expected to be attended by hundreds of Wikimedians from around the globe.
In brief
Note: not all fixes may have gone live to WMF sites at the time of writing; some may not be scheduled to go live for many weeks. Wikimedia sites now have their own "branch", meaning that it is no longer possible to say that they are running revision X; rather, they are running a mix of different revisions prioritised by importance.
- Bug #24167 has been fixed, preventing multiple "warn" edit filters from conflicting with each other and thus preventing an edit from getting through at all.
- The 'Languages' section of the sidebar, used for interwiki links, will now stay collapsed if so desired across pages (bug #24140).
- The "Peachy" bot framework for PHP moves into official beta mode, with PHP bot operators required to put it through its paces.
- The Vector skin went live to 83 WMF wikis (see previous Signpost coverage). One, the Ukrainian Wikipedia, went back to Monobook since the skin had not been sufficiently translated.
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