Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2016-05-02

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2016-05-02

Wikimedia Switzerland's board and paid-editing firm; passing of Ed Dravecky

Some of the attendees at the chapter's recent annual general assembly

The Swiss Wikimedia chapter was founded on May 14, 2006, almost exactly ten years ago. It counts about 250 paid-up members and is one of only two chapters allowed to process income from fundraising banners directly. Recent discussions on the French Wikipedia have drawn attention to the involvement of some of the chapters' current board members in a paid-editing firm. The Signpost investigated this issue.

Discussions on French Wikipedia

On the French Wikipedia, discussions began on April 6, 2016 on the paid-editing activities of Swiss firm Racosch Sàrl, whose website states:

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Wikipedia by Wikipedians

Racosch is a Swiss boutique consulting firm specialised in editing Wikipedia articles.

Our clients are companies as much as high-profile individuals, as well as other Public Relations specialists who want to update or add factual information, correct inaccuracies or address the presence of unsightly banners at the top of articles.

In the course of the discussions, outgoing Wikimedia Switzerland (WMCH) board member Gabriel Thullen (GastelEtzwane) wrote that it is common knowledge – at least within WMCH – that two of the company's principals have been long-standing board members of the chapter, while a third is married to a WMCH employee. The company's three principals are listed on Swiss company registration websites as Stéphane Coillet-Matillon, Frédéric Schütz, and Nicolas Ray. Coillet-Matillon (Wikipedia user Popo le Chien) and Schütz (Wikipedia user Schutz) are current WMCH board members; Schütz is the chapter's vice-president and French-speaking press contact on the WMCH website.

The involvement of chapter board members in paid PR work has previously led to significant adverse publicity, as evidenced by the 2012 Gibraltarpedia controversy. We contacted WMCH requesting further information and received prompt replies from Frédéric Schütz.

Our questions and Schütz's answers are below.

Q&A

The Swiss chapter's logo
1. Please confirm which present or past WMCH board members or staff are personally involved in Racosch Sàrl, or have close family ties to people involved with the company.

I am personally involved. Stéphane is also involved – but he did not stand for reelection at the recent general assembly and his term ends June 1st. The third associate is the husband of WMCH's administrative assistant. No WM CH staff is involved.

2. On which Wikipedias are Racosch Sàrl editors with such ties to WMCH active?

FR and EN at the moment.

3. Do they declare their ties to WMCH onwiki?

Not on-wiki. More specifically: the name "Racosch" is never associated with the name WMCH, to avoid giving the wrong impression that Racosch is in any way endorsed by the Chapter.

But this is being discussed openly, e.g. within the Swiss community (see below). Stéphane recently attended the Berlin WM conference and was also very transparent about it; he will likewise attend Wikimania and we're discussing making a Beutler/Lih type of presentation at the upcoming French Wikicon.

4. How is the chapter dealing with the potential for conflicts of interest? For example, do you have formal rules forbidding WMCH staff and board members from recommending any particular Wikipedia PR firm to companies, organisations, and members of the public who contact WMCH for advice on Wikipedia?

The chapter has a policy on conflicts of interest, which requires disclosing all potential interests in writing – which was done.

In case of a request to Wikimedia CH, the policy is to reply that the chapter cannot provide advice on this topic and in particular cannot recommend anyone. This being said, one of us remembers that during past discussions someone had informally mentioned Beutler Ink, which was the only one we knew of that does proper paid editing.

Note that in any case such contacts are handled by our 3 community liaisons, not by board members (nor by the administrative assistant indicated above).

5. We understand that WMCH board members are elected at the annual general assembly. Are candidates required to disclose to the WMCH electorate potential conflicts of interest, such as involvement in a paid-editing firm; if so, how and where are such disclosures made?
6. How many WMCH members typically attend the annual general assembly? How many voted in this year's and last year's board elections?

The paid editing matter was spontaneously disclosed by both Stéphane and I while introducing ourselves, and was of course discussed during the general assembly (which typically attracts around 30+ participants). In the end, Stéphane did not recandidate (but he would likely have had no problem being reelected), while I received 27 votes/32 (second best score) – indicating that we approached the matter rather correctly.

7. In the WMCH 04/2016 newsletter, the linked minutes of your most recent general assembly are visible only to logged-in WMCH members. Will you consider making the pages documenting your election process publicly viewable?

We'll likely make it publicly available, yes. In the meantime, see attached a PDF version of the version currently available on our members wiki.

General assembly minutes

The general assembly minutes the Signpost received from Schütz contain two references to paid editing:

Page 5

The 10 candidates introduce themselves. Stéphane Coillet-Matillon announces that he retracts his candidature as a member as he wants to concentrate on his new company.

The assembly asks questions to the candidates, in particular about potential conflicts of interest and paid editing.

Page 6

A member suggests that the association should revise its bylaws and discuss the topic of paid editing; this is not discussed further, due to lack of time. Nevertheless, the new board will take this topic into consideration.

WMCH conflict-of-interest policy

The WMCH conflict-of-interest policy Schütz refers to states, in part,

Since conflicts of interest cannot be avoided, they should be handled professionally. ...

  • Each member of the Board or of the Executive Management team should arrange his personal and business affairs so as to avoid, as far as possible, conflicts of interest with the association.
  • Should a conflict of interest arise, the member of the Board or Executive Management concerned should inform the President of the Board. The President, or Vice-President, should request a decision by the Board which reflects the seriousness of the conflict of interest. The Board shall decide without participation of the person concerned, and the conflict of interest and the board decision will be recorded in the minutes.
  • ... Anyone having a permanent conflict of interest should not be a member of the Board or the Executive Management.

User accounts

On the English Wikipedia, three user accounts presently mention an association with Racosch on their user pages, along with the articles they have made paid contributions to:

All three are also active under the same names on the French Wikipedia, where similar disclosures are made. Schutz's user page on the French Wikipedia has declared Wicodric as a secondary account for paid contributions since April 8, 2016.

The Signpost looks forward to further community discussion, and thanks Frédéric Schütz for his candid and timely replies to our questions.

Ed Dravecky, RIP

Turtle pin for Ed Dravecky
Any death is sad, but the death of someone as young as 47 is more so. Long-time and still-active Wikipedia administrator Ed Dravecky died unexpectedly on April 23, 2016 while attending WhoFest 3 in Dallas, Texas. A Georgia Tech alumnus and native of Hunstville, Alabama, he was active in several WikiProjects, including WikiProject Alabama and WikiProject Radio Stations. He claimed at least 145 Did You Know? credits, and received numerous barnstars and other awards. He was active on Commons, where his most recent upload, less than a week before his death, was a crop of Turtle pin.jpg.

Ed had worked in radio, first as a disc jockey and later with broadcast automation systems. He co-founded FenCon (a literary science-fiction event) and WhoFest (a convention dedicated to the iconic BBC series Doctor Who), and was well-known in the science fiction and fantasy communities. He was an Eagle Scout and a graduate of the United States Space Camp. He was born in Huntsville, Alabama, and at the time of his death, he lived in Dallas. His full obituary is here.



Reader comments

2016-05-02

Wikipedia Zero piracy in Bangladesh; bureaucracy; chilling effects; too few cooks; translation gaps

Wikimedia Bangladesh has become involved in the dispute
As in Angola, Bangladeshis are using zero-rated Wikimedia sites to upload copyrighted material and then share the links in filesharing groups on the equally zero-rated Facebook.

Koebler says the "arms race" between the pirates and Wikimedians trying to stop them is "significantly more advanced" than it it is in Angola:

A task force of editors in the developed world are desperately trying to get Bangladeshis play by Wikipedia's existing rules by closely monitoring and banning people who upload pirated content. They're invading Facebook groups to monitor and determine how and where people are uploading files. They're keeping a running tally of the number and names of accounts that have uploaded content. They've blocked entire IP ranges from uploading files, and have created filters that monitor all uploads that come from Wikipedia Zero accounts and from new accounts in general.

Meanwhile,

the Bangladeshi operations that I've seen appear to be much more sophisticated than the Angolan ones – they have posted specific guides to converting videos to smaller and harder-to-detect file types, have started using Wikipedia test sites, and have started using free sites online that automatically upload YouTube videos to Wikimedia Commons.

Wikimedia Bangladesh has become involved, pleading with users to stop the uploads, telling them they are contributing to an "increasingly negative perception of Bangladesh in many different sectors" by treating Wikimedia sites as a sort of free YouTube. But, Koebler argues,

Commons is YouTube for Wikipedia Zero users out of necessity, not choice. Because they can't afford access to YouTube and the rest of the internet, Wikipedia has become the internet for lots of Bangladeshis. What's crazy, then, is that a bunch of more-or-less random editors who happen to want to be the piracy police are dictating the means of access for an entire population of people ... there's no simple way out of this situation. When you create two entirely different tiers of internet, those in the second tier will rightly aspire to get into the first tier.

Study: Wikipedia is basically a corporate bureaucracy

The Kafka index, named after Franz Kafka's The Trial, represents the complexity of a bureaucracy

Gizmodo reports (April 25) on a new study by Bradi Heaberlin and Simon DeDeo arguing that Wikipedia has become a corporate bureaucracy, "akin to bureaucratic systems that predate the information age."

Wikipedia is a voluntary organization dedicated to the noble goal of decentralized knowledge creation. But as the community has evolved over time, it has wandered further and further from its early egalitarian ideals, according to a new paper published in the journal Future Internet. In fact, such systems usually end up looking a lot like 20th century bureaucracies.

Even in the brave new world of online communities, the Who had it right: "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

One of the study's most striking findings, Gizmodo reports, is that

even on Wikipedia, the so-called "Iron Law of Oligarchy" – a.k.a. rule by an elite few – holds sway. ... "You start with a decentralized democratic system, but over time you get the emergence of a leadership class with privileged access to information and social networks," DeDeo explained. "Their interests begin to diverge from the rest of the group. They no longer have the same needs and goals. So not only do they come to gain the most power within the system, but they may use it in ways that conflict with the needs of everybody else."

DeDeo and Heaberlin note Wikipedia's conservative nature: over 89 per cent of its core norms, created by a small pool of around 100 users, have remained unchanged; they have achieved a "myth-like status" even as they inevitably conflict with each other. Resolution of such conflicts is made more difficult by the fact that editors form central "neighbourhoods" organised around "article quality, content policy, collaboration, and administrators" that are "increasingly separate and interact with each other less and less", leading to the emergence of tribalism.

DeDeo and Heaberlin performed a purely mathematical analysis of broad trends in the Wikipedia data, connecting this hyper-quantitative approach with sociology and political science. The next step is to collaborate with cultural anthropologists to undertake a close reading of all those inter-linked individual pages.

"We need to understand how these systems work if we're going to understand how the economy of the future will run. They don't have laws, they have traditions and norms," said DeDeo when asked why this kind of research matters. "I think what we're doing is investing research into a problem that, 200 years from now, could be the biggest problem in the world – if we don't destroy ourselves first."

In its article, Gizmodo references a study published earlier this year in Physical Review E by Jinhyuk Yun (윤진혁), Sang Hoon Lee (이상훈), and Hawoong Jeong (정하웅) from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, which came to similar conclusions about Wikipedia. The Korean study received a German-language write-up in taz this week (April 28).

DeDeo's and Heaberlin's study was subsequently also covered by The Washington Post as well as by Sciencealert.com (April 28).

Chilling effects

Edward Snowden's revelations have had a marked effect on Wikipedia users' reading habits, a study finds

The Washington Post, along with many other media outlets, reports that according to a new study by Jon Penney, "Snowden's disclosures about NSA spying had a scary effect on free speech":

Internet traffic to Wikipedia pages summarizing knowledge about terror groups and their tools plunged nearly 30 percent after revelations of widespread Web monitoring by the U.S. National Security Agency, suggesting that concerns about government snooping are hurting the ordinary pursuit of information.

The study, titled "Chilling Effects: Online Surveillance and Wikipedia Use", is

focused on Wikipedia pages related to sensitive topics specifically flagged by the Department of Homeland Security. In a document provided to its analysts in 2011, the DHS listed 48 terrorism terms that they should use when "monitoring social media sites." Penney collected traffic data on the English Wikipedia pages most closely related to those terms.

The collected data showed that pageviews dropped immediately after the June 2013 news stories about Snowden and never recovered to previous levels.

"You want to have informed citizens," Penney said. "If people are spooked or deterred from learning about important policy matters like terrorism and national security, this is a real threat to proper democratic debate."

Too few cooks in Wikipedia ...

[[File:|center|300px]]

... and not enough gorgeous, ...

The New Statesman covers (Apr. 17) a project kickstarted by Bee Wilson, chair of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, to bring more women editors to Wikipedia in order to improve its articles on food. The article's writer, Felicity Cloake, visited a related group editing session at the British Library.

[Wikipedia's] "egregious gender imbalance" is especially notable in matters relating to food, because, as Polly Russell, the library's curator of food studies, explains, "we're such a new area of serious study". Most food throughout history has been cooked by women, "but if you can’t name them, they get forgotten."

... sumptuous ...

Commenting on the under-representation of notable women on Wikipedia,

Wilson ... cites the example of Philippa Glanville, a former chief curator of the metalwork, silver and jewellery department at the Victoria and Albert Museum and a world expert on historical dining practices, whose achievements were recognised by the Queen before the online encyclopaedia ("Presumably getting on Wikipedia should be easier than getting an OBE").

Facilitating this process is the goal of Wiki-Food, which groups academics, students, experts and enthusiastic amateurs with the aim of improving and expanding Wikipedia's coverage of food-related topics, especially but not exclusively those relevant to women, with support from Wikipedia.

... food!

Finding translation gaps

VentureBeat reports (Apr. 28) on a collaboration between Wikimedia and Stanford University to help point translators to significant content gaps in other language versions of Wikipedia:

finding out which topics or articles are in particular shortage in specific tongues is a challenge, which is why Wikimedia is partnering with Stanford University researchers to design a new recommendation system. This will rank Wikipedia articles in order of priority across languages. The ranking is based on a number of factors, including editor interests (using contribution history data), language proficiency, and anticipated popularity if an article was translated. For example, a native Swahili speaker is unlikely to care about the history of a U.K. baking business, but they may care about WrestleMania 32.

University news site Futurity also has an article (Apr. 15) on the project; a Wikimedia blog post (Apr. 27) is available here.

Indian writer and ecologist Madhav Gadgil is due to lead a Wikipedia workshop in Kerala this week
Beyoncé's fan base, the "Beyhive", descended on Wikipedia on April 24
  • The Beyhive descends on Wikipedia: As covered by The Root, The Daily Mail and many others, Beyoncé fans, collectively known as the "Beyhive", took to vandalising fashion designer Rachel Roy's Wikipedia biography, believing her to be the "Becky with the good hair" referred to by Beyoncé in one of the songs on her new album, Lemonade, as a rival for husband Jay Z's affections. On April 24, the Rachel Roy biography received over one hundred edits within the space of one hour. (Apr. 24–25)
  • Product placement: The A.V. Club looks at Wikipedia's article on product placement as part of its Wiki Wormhole series. (Apr. 24)
  • A source-o-meter?: The Atlantic reports on a study (see previous Signpost coverage in the February edition of "Recent research" and the related talk page) suggesting that Wikipedia should build a "source-o-meter" indicating how many of the information sources a Wikipedia article is based on can readily be verified by the reader online. (Apr. 22)
  • Wikipedia soon to be available on the Moon: Mic, TechCrunch, TechWorm and others cover the efforts to take Wikipedia to the Moon, as covered in last week's Signpost. (Apr. 21–24)
  • Police chief apologises: The Saskatoon Star-Phoenix reports that "Saskatoon police Chief Clive Weighill said he is angry and upset that someone from inside police headquarters altered the department's Wikipedia page to erase all references to 'starlight tours.'" "It really does upset me. It's just another step backward," Weighill is reported to have said at a board of police commissioners meeting. For context see the previous Signpost article, "Saskatoon police delete Wikipedia content about police brutality". (Apr. 21)
  • Full Measure: Sharyl Atkisson's U.S. TV series Full Measure covers the "Dark Side of Wikipedia". The programme interviewed two banned paid editors, Wikipediocracy co-founder Gregory Kohs (Thekohser) and Mike Wood (Morning277). (Apr. 17)
  • Pottermore take-down notices target Wikipedia: As described by Business Insider and TorrentFreak, Pottermore, the publishing company responsible for marketing the popular Harry Potter series, has filed copyright takedown demands alleging various websites, among them Wikipedia, contain its intellectual property. Business Insider and TorrentFreak described the takedown requests as "surreal" and "bizarre". (Apr. 14–15)
Hong Kong, home to the "youngest group of Wikipedians in the world", according to Jimmy Wales – some editors started contributing while still in primary school
  • Odia Wikimedian: Opensource.com features Sailesh Patnaik's description of his "four year, action-packed experience with Wikipedia" that began with his registering a user account in April 2012, aged 15. "I consider myself to be an Odia Wikimedian. I contribute Odia knowledge (the predominant language of the Indian state of Odisha) to many Wikimedia projects, like Wikipedia and Wikisource, by writing articles and correcting mistakes in articles. I also contribute to Hindi and English Wikipedia articles." And he has done much else besides in the Wikimedia movement, as you can read in his retrospective. (Apr. 15)
  • Wiki-geeks get seriously young: The Statesman reports on school-age Wikipedia contributors from Hong Kong. Jimmy Wales "once described the Hong Kong team as the youngest group of Wikipedians in the world." (Apr. 15)
  • Block chain war: Cryptocurrency blog CoinTelegraph discusses an "edit war" on the article block chain. (Apr. 14)
  • Year of science: Plos.org reports that "The Wiki Education Foundation (Wiki Ed) has announced the 2016 Wikipedia Year of Science, an initiative to improve Wikipedia's potential for communicating science to the public. Through its Classroom Program (where students write Wikipedia articles on class-related topics in place of a traditional research paper) and with collaborations from Wikipedia editors, Wiki Ed will engage scientists to improve the breadth and depth of scientific content on Wikipedia." (Apr. 14)



Do you want to contribute to "In the media" by writing a story or even just an "in brief" item? Edit next week's edition in the Newsroom or contact the editor.



Reader comments

2016-05-02

Purple

The unexpected death of Prince on April 20 leads the chart with the highest view count in this chart's history, breaking the record that was just set this January by the passing of David Bowie. Outside the Top 10, six additional slots are taken up by Prince-related topics, but death dominated the Top 10 generally, with wrestler Chyna at #2, British comedian Victoria Wood at #7, American actress Doris Roberts at #8, and the ever popular Deaths in 2016 rising to #5 this week.

For the full top-25 lists (and our archives back to January 2013), see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions. For a list of the most edited articles every week, see here.

For the week of April 17 to 23, 2016, the ten most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages (WP:5000), were:

Rank Article Class Views Image Notes
1 Prince (musician) B-class 13,064,933
Well, although the rational side of our human brains know that the recent spate of deaths of musical icons in 2016 must be coincidental, it sure doesn't feel that way to the emotional side of our brain looking to make sense of things. The news of the completely unexpected death of Prince at age 57, a highly successful artist who first became famous in the 1980s, and whose talent was quite widely acknowledged, spread throughout the internet like wildfire. It was only in January of this year that the death of David Bowie yielded the first entry in this chart's history to hit eight figures – with 11.7 million views. Prince's death has now exceeded that record, racking up over 13 million views – and in only three days, as he died on Thursday. Bowie died on a Sunday, so his 11.7 million views were obtained over a full seven days. Does this mean that Prince was more beloved than Bowie? How does one judge?
2 Chyna Good Article 2,121,679
The lead sentence of our article on Chyna says she "was an American professional wrestler, actress, glamour model, bodybuilder, English teacher and pornographic film actress." She rose to fame on the wrestling part, though. She was found dead in her California home on April 20, at the age of 46.
3 Harriet Tubman Featured Article 1,358,526
Last week it was announced that one of the most famous women in American history would be replacing President Andrew Jackson (#16) on the United States twenty-dollar bill. The new bill is expected to be unveiled in 2020. When the idea of putting a woman on a U.S. bill first arose last year, it was floated that the target was the ten-dollar bill, which features Alexander Hamilton. However, in one of those odd turns of history that will certainly generate many Reddit "Today I Learned" threads in the future, the success of the musical Hamilton was credited for the change in plans.
4 420 (cannabis culture) Start-class 1,021,596
This curious "holiday", which falls on April 20 (for obvious reasons) refers to the mysterious number 420 and its long association with marijuana usage. While it may not quite be to cannabis what Oktoberfest is to beer, it no doubt aspires to be. And it returns to the top 5 as it has in previous years. We also note the article remains, every year, far too laid back to improve any further from Start Class.
5 Deaths in 2016 List 953,110
A big jump this week due to #1. And with Prince's death only the latest in a streak of high profile celebrity deaths, we are now seeing many articles asking "why" there have been so many celebrity deaths in 2016. Setting aside the coincidental spikes that can always occur, the most likely answer comes from BBC obituary editor Nick Serpell. He argues that there are more famous people now, starting from the 1960s, and these people are now in the 60s and 70s and naturally starting to die. If we extrapolate from that, you could argue that social media has boosted the number of famous people once again in the past ten years. Does that mean that in 50 years this chart will be inundated with the deaths of people like the Numa Numa guy, David After Dentist and Damn Daniel? Stay tuned to find out.
6 The Jungle Book (2016 film) Start-class 939,876
Down from #2, but only 100,000 views down from last week. This American film based on Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, previously adapted to screen in a 1967 animated film, had its world premiere on April 4. It was released in 15 countries on April 8, and debuted in the US on April 15 to a stellar $103 million weekend and rapturous reviews (the film currently has a 94% RT rating). Despite being described as a "live-action reboot", the film is really more of a CGI cartoon, with nearly everything onscreen except the lead child actor Neel Sethi composed of computer graphics.
7 Victoria Wood C-class 927,781
This English commedienne and five-time BAFTA-winning actress died of cancer on April 20, 2016. Much of her humour was grounded in everyday life, and included references to popular British media and brand names of quintessentially British products, which made her fame relatively exclusive to Britain. And while I am embarrassed to admit it, this made me google whether Morrissey liked her. And indeed he did, along with many many others.
8 Doris Roberts C-class 897,883
This American actress died on April 17, best known for her role playing Marie Barone in the American sitcom Everyone Loves Raymond. (Morrissey had nothing to say about her death, though she received many fine tributes from others.)
9 Fan (film) Start-class 892,651
On for another week, with a jump of over 150,000 views over last week. This Bollywood hybrid of The Fan and Single White Female, in which a Bollywood star and an obsessed lookalike (both played by Shah Rukh Khan (pictured)) gradually become entangled in a game of revenge, was made on a relatively hefty budget of ₹850 million ($13 million). It has now earned more than ₹1.72 billion ($26 million).
10 William Shakespeare Featured Article 881,813
Yes, it is yet ANOTHER celebrity death. Zounds! However, this one occurred four hundred years ago this week, and was celebrated by a Google Doodle, among many other mentions in the press.

Just missing the WP:TOP25: Apollonia Kotero (#26, Prince-related); Prince albums discography (#27); Vanity (singer) (#28, Prince-related); List of The Flash (2014 TV series) episodes (#29); List of Bollywood films of 2016 (#30)



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2016-05-02

The best ... from the past two weeks

John Legend and Common received the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Glory", the theme song of Selma.

This Signpost "Featured content" report covers material promoted from 17 to 30 April.
Text may be adapted from the respective articles and lists; see their page histories for attribution.
The Literary Hall was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
Critics named Knight Lore among the best games for the ZX Spectrum.
Lady Gaga during a solo performance on the Cheek to Cheek Tour

Seven featured articles were promoted these weeks.

  • The 7th Army (nominated by Peacemaker67) was a Royal Yugoslav Army formation raised prior to the German-led Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, during World War II. It consisted of two divisions, two brigade-strength mountain detachments, and a brigade-strength infantry detachment. It formed part of the 1st Army Group, and was responsible for the defence of Yugoslavia's north-western frontier with Italy and the Third Reich.
  • Literary Hall (nominated by West Virginian) is a mid-19th-century brick library building and museum in Romney, West Virginia. Located at the intersection of North High Street and West Main Street, the hall was constructed between 1869 and 1870 by the Romney Literary Society. Its basic design incorporates Federal and Greek Revival styles along with Victorian details. Architectural historian Michael J. Pauley described Literary Hall as "one of Romney's and Hampshire County's most notable landmarks, and one in which this community is justifiably proud".
  • The Phantom Tollbooth (nominated by Wehwalt) is a 1961 children's adventure novel by Norton Juster with illustrations by Jules Feiffer. It tells the story of a bored young boy named Milo who unexpectedly receives a magic tollbooth one afternoon and, having nothing better to do, drives through it in his toy car. The tollbooth transports him to the Kingdom of Wisdom, once prosperous, now troubled. There, he acquires two faithful companions and goes on a quest to restore to the kingdom its exiled princesses—named Rhyme and Reason—from the Castle in the Air. Milo accomplishes his quest, and in so doing realizes the world around him is filled with interesting things. The text is full of puns and wordplay, and many events, such as when Milo unintentionally jumps to Conclusions (an island in Wisdom), explore the literal meanings of idioms. It has been adapted into a film, opera, and play, and translated into many languages.
  • Djedkare Isesi (nominated by Iry-Hor) was an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh, the eighth and penultimate ruler of the Fifth Dynasty in the late 25th to mid 24th century BCE, during the Old Kingdom period. Djedkare likely enjoyed a long reign of over 40 years, which heralded a new period in the history of the Old Kingdom. He effected comprehensive reforms of the Egyptian state administration, reorganised the funerary cults of his forebears buried in the necropolis of Abusir and reformed the corresponding priesthood.
  • The Gudovac massacre (nominated by 23 editor) was the mass killing of around 190 Bjelovar Serbs by the Croatian nationalist Ustaše movement in 1941. The massacre occurred shortly after the German-led Axis invasion of Yugoslavia and the establishment of the Ustaše-led Axis puppet state known as the Independent State of Croatia. It was the first act of mass murder committed by the Ustaše upon coming to power.
  • Maxinquaye (nominated by Dan56) is the debut album by English rapper and producer Tricky, who recorded the album primarily at his home studio in London in 1994 with his then-girlfriend, singer Martina Topley-Bird, who shared vocals on most of the tracks with him. The songs explore themes of dysfunctional sexual relationships, fear of intimacy, recreational drug use, and cultural decline. His songwriting style and use of female vocalists such as Topley-Bird were influenced by his mother, Maxine Quaye, after whom the album was titled. It reached number three on the United Kingdom's albums chart and sold over 500,000 copies worldwide.
  • Knight Lore (nominated by Czar) is a 1984 action-adventure game known for popularising isometric graphics in video games. The game was developed and published by Ultimate Play the Game and written by company founders Chris and Tim Stamper. In Knight Lore, the player-character Sabreman has forty days to collect objects throughout a castle and brew a cure to his werewolf curse. Each castle room is depicted in monochrome on its own screen and consists of blocks to climb, obstacles to avoid, and puzzles to solve. It is regarded as a seminal work in British gaming history. Critics considered its technical solutions and isometric 3D style a harbinger of future game design. They praised the game's controls and atmosphere of mystery, but noted its difficult gameplay and criticised its sound and occasional graphical slowdown.

Six featured lists were promoted these weeks.

  • Selma is a 2014 American historical drama film directed by Ava DuVernay. The screenplay was written by Paul Webb. The film follows the events leading up to and during the Selma to Montgomery marches, and the resulting establishment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which prohibited racial discrimination in voting in the United States. The film garnered awards and nominations (nominated by Cowlibob) in a variety of categories with particular praise for its direction, David Oyelowo's portrayal of Martin Luther King Jr., and the song "Glory" by John Legend and Common. It grossed a worldwide total of over $66 million on a production budget of $20 million.
  • Roald Dahl (1916–1990) was a British author and scriptwriter. His bibliography (nominated by SchroCat) includes nineteen novels, thirteen short story collections, twelve scripts, three poem collections and nine non-fiction works. He also selected the stories for the 1983 short story collection Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories. As of 2015, Dahl's works have been translated into 59 languages and have sold more than 200 million books worldwide. His awards for contribution to literature include the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, and the British Book Awards' Children's Author of the Year.
  • Lady Gaga (born 1986) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Her live performances (nominated by FrB.TG and GagaNutella) include five concert tours (with 499 shows), one residency show at Roseland Ballroom and a promotional concert. Additionally she also performed live at various award ceremonies and television shows, including the MTV Video Music Awards (three times), the Grammy Awards (four times) and the Academy Awards (twice). She also performed "The Star-Spangled Banner" before Super Bowl 50.
  • F.C. United of Manchester is an English semi-professional association football club based in Moston, Manchester. The club was formed in June 2005 by supporters of Manchester United opposed to American businessman Malcolm Glazer's takeover of that club. The club played their first two seasons (nominated by Odder and Delusion23) in the North West Counties League, becoming the champions in the league's both divisions, and advanced to the Northern Premier League. They finished second in the Division One North, and advanced to the Premier Division through play-offs. In the 2015–16 season, the club competed in the National League North, at level six of English football, following promotion after the previous season.
  • The Green Park Stadium is a cricket ground in Kanpur, India. It is the home ground of the Uttar Pradesh cricket team and has played host to Ranji Trophy matches, as well as being a Test and One Day International venue. As of 2016, there have been 41 international cricket centuries (nominated by Vensatry) at the venue, with the most recent being made by Rohit Sharma during a One Day International match between India and South Africa.
  • Olly Murs (born 1984) is an English singer-songwriter, television presenter and actor. As of 2016, Murs has recorded 80 songs (nominated by Calvin999 and Tomica), including seven-teen singles.

Four featured pictures were promoted these weeks.



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2016-05-02

Two editors unbanned; Wikicology case enters workshop phase; Gamaliel restricted from Gamergate at his own request




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2016-05-02

The eight roles of Wikipedians; do edit histories expose social relations among editors?

A monthly overview of recent academic research about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, also published as the Wikimedia Research Newsletter.



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