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Volume 2, Issue 47 20 November 2006 About the Signpost
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SPV

One week later, Wikipedia reblocked in mainland China

A week after access to the Chinese Wikipedia appeared to have been restored, authorities of the People's Republic of China reversed that move and blocked the entire site again. The change came as a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman stated that the government administers the Internet there "in accordance with law."

As reported last week (see archived story), an unblocking of Wikipedia in October, which was only partially applied to the Chinese-language version, transformed into a general unblock of the Chinese version around 10 November. A major spike in new user registrations and creation of new articles followed (as did some negative byproducts, such as more articles being deleted and an increased need to remove copyright infringements). The change also gained significant media attention, including stories appearing in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times.

Amid this press coverage, however, the situation turned dramatically, quickly enough that stories about the unblock were being published after events had rendered them obsolete. On Thursday, 17 November, around 9-10 am Beijing time according to Andrew Lih, the site was blocked again in mainland China. The updated situation was quickly picked up by the Associated Press, creating a confusing mix of news reports that Wikipedia was either blocked or unblocked, until stories about the reblocking took over.

Since no clear reason for the unblock or the reblock is known, some people tried to dig for clues. On 16 November, a reporter asked specifically about Wikipedia's unblock at a regular Foreign Ministry press conference. Spokeswoman Jiang Yu responded, according to an English transcript (Chinese version), "I'm not aware of the information on the website you mentioned."

Her response was soon relayed in English-language media via Reuters wire service reports, shortly before the reversal. The timing prompted some speculation that the question may have led to the reblocking, although Lih commented, "There is no way to know at this point." As in the past, the PRC government has not officially confirmed the block or given an explanation of the reason for it.

The prospects for change also remain uncertain, with no information on whether this is a permanent or interim approach. William Moss, a CNET blogger based in Beijing, observed that several other blocked sites have had interludes in which they are accessible again. Lih indicated that the renewed block was somewhat more restrictive, also preventing searches for the Chinese Wikipedia's web domain, zh.wikipedia.org.

SPV

Military history dominates writing contest

Results have been announced in the most recent "Danny's contest", a writing competition to improve Wikipedia articles. The field of military history proved to be a fertile source of material for the winning contest entries.

The latest competition, the third to be launched by Danny, was announced in September. Two previous contests were held in 2004 (see archived story). While writing contests have been held for several other languages since then, the English Wikipedia had not continued with similar efforts, although a number of Wikipedia:collaborations have been started.

Following up on Jimmy Wales's emphasis on "quality over quantity" at Wikimania 2006, the resurrected contest called for the improvement of articles that were lacking sources, noting that about 20% of Wikipedia articles fell into this category. The winner was to be the best improvement of a previously unsourced article, one relating to history or selected from Wikipedia:Vital articles, a list of subjects "for which the English Wikipedia should have a corresponding featured article."

Danny indicated that he would award a 100Amazongiftcertificatetothecontestwinner.Hedidnotparticipateinthejudgingpanel,whichincluded[Lar](/wiki/User:Lar"User:Lar"),[Sannse](/wiki/User:Sannse"User:Sannse"),and[Shanel](/wiki/User:Shanel"User:Shanel").Thejudgesalsoidentifiedtworunners−up,whoweretoreceive100 Amazon gift certificate to the contest winner. He did not participate in the judging panel, which included [Lar](/wiki/User:Lar "User:Lar"), [Sannse](/wiki/User:Sannse "User:Sannse"), and [Shanel](/wiki/User:Shanel "User:Shanel"). The judges also identified two runners-up, who were to receive 100Amazongiftcertificatetothecontestwinner.Hedidnotparticipateinthejudgingpanel,whichincluded[Lar](/wiki/User:Lar"User:Lar"),[Sannse](/wiki/User:Sannse"User:Sannse"),and[Shanel](/wiki/User:Shanel"User:Shanel").Thejudgesalsoidentifiedtworunners−up,whoweretoreceive35 gift certificates.

Contest winners

The winning entry was Crawford expedition, which Kevin Myers described as "the saddest, most ignored article" he could find in his field of interest. After working on it, he turned the single unformatted paragraph into a lengthy, detailed and heavily-referenced article. The other articles honored were Battle of Ceresole, submitted by Kirill Lokshin, and Theramenes, which was primarily the work of Robth. The two runners-up were both successfully nominated as featured articles, and had some participation from additional editors as a result of the nominations. Unlike those two, Crawford expedition is not a featured article, perhaps only because it has never been nominated.

All three winners are identified as being part of the Military history WikiProject. This is one of the busiest and most successful WikiProjects and, its subject matter notwithstanding, functions "amazing smoothly" with minimal disputes, as Alex Bakharev recently put it. Of the editors who submitted the winning articles, both Kirill Lokshin and Robth are members of the project. Kevin Myers is not listed there, but says that he works primarily on articles about the American Revolutionary War and American Indians.

15 e-Primers donated to Wikibooks

The Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme (website), a United Nations Development Programme, announced the donation of 15 e-Primers to Wikibooks this week. By releasing the e-books, which all deal with Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D), under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, the same license in which all Wikimedia Foundation projects (except Wikinews) are developed under, the Programme is allowing the books to be freely updated and improved. Nine of the books are in the Programme's series on "Information Economy, Society and Polity", and the other six are in a series concerning "Free/Open Source Software (FOSS)". Wikibooks was chosen because of the potential for collaboration, as well as the existing "quality control", policies and guidelines, as well as the free content license used.

Upcoming changes to user page warnings

Over the coming weeks, editors may notice that the user page messages and warning templates are changing. The WikiProject user warnings has started a program to harmonise the existing templates. Their objective is to create a simple structure to which current and future messages and warnings will adhere.

These messages are, for a lot of editors, their first actual interaction with the Wikipedia community. There are currently just short of 300 user templates, ranging from the ubiquitous test messages to messages about behaviour and format suggestions. Technical and wording changes will bring this number down to roughly 100, although redirects will ensure that old templates still work.

The project is currently run by six members, with another 40 willing to help out, and they are always looking for editors willing to participate. If you are not familiar with the project, visit the project page, and if you have some spare time over the coming months please lend a hand.

Briefly

Chronicle of Higher Education

In an apparent follow-up to its prior article "Can Wikipedia Ever Make the Grade?" by Brock Read, The Chronicle of Higher Education published a second article by Ann Kirschner. Kirshner explains Wikipedia, the Wikipedia phenomenon and her own attempts to edit. She credits "editorial elves" for improving her contribution and recounts her search for the editor who added an image. Kirshner then explains the history function and how she found that Danny Wool added the image. Wool is subsequently quoted in the article. Kirshner concludes: "for now, Wikipedia works. ... I'm prepared to believe that Wikipedia's millions of eyes will continue its evolution and improve its quality."

Wikipedia Quality

Wikipedia quality continues to be a topic that generates significant coverage in the media. In Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald carried an article criticizing those that trust Wikipedia. ABC-9 in Syracuse, New York ran a report with the lead "If you or maybe your child is doing some research online, you most likely run into Wikipedia." The article notes that not everything is accurate and reports on a Quinnipiac who purposefully added incorrect information. The Dartmouth reported on the views of Dartmouth College professors on Wikipedia. The article quotes: Wikipedia is "not the same as a peer-reviewed journal", and that "Wikipedia is often useful as a quick orientation tool that requires verification."

Milton Friedman

MarketWatch, in an article covering the death of Milton Friedman identified Wikipedia as being what the "advocate of free markets as a means to create political and social freedom ... might [use as] a great example of how free markets can produce efficiencies." The article subsequently quoted 2 paragraphs from the Wikipedia entry on Friedman.

Wikipedia explodes in growth

So claims Tim Krohn in an article in the Mankato Free Press. Krohn interviews Max Hailperin, the chairman of the local college's mathematics department. Hailperin warns readers not to "trust anything as an authoritative source of information." However, he also says, "if it’s some noncontroversial, factual piece of information, chances are what you find there is correct." The article also reports on Wikipedia's coverage of local areas of interest.

Pearson to publish business wikibook

The Wall Street Journal reports that Pearson PLC is partnering with University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and MIT's Sloan School to create a business book that will be authored and edited using wiki processes by an online community committed to the project. Wikipedia is mentioned as "inspiring" the effort.

Information everywhere

In an article about the myriad information and "fact" choices available in the modern world, Will Hutton, of The Observer, references Wikipedia as a site providing those choices. Stating that "pessimists say that we are living in an era in which objectivity is collapsing, [where you] seek for what you want to be true..." He concludes that "pessimists are right except in one respect - they underestimate the ability of individuals collectively to want to understand, notwithstanding their prejudices and beliefs, and, thus, ultimately the power of truth to win out." He claims that just like China could not resist Wikipedia, western media "cannot resist the demand that we be able to trust them."

Wikipedia as source

Continuing coverage

Administrators

Eight users were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: Metros232 (nom), Tango (nom), Mike Selinker (nom), ReyBrujo (nom), Martinp23 (nom), Tariqabjotu (nom), Rama's Arrow (nom), and Opabinia regalis (nom).

Featured content

No articles were promoted to featured status last week.

Five articles were de-featured last week: Lakitu, Black hole, Common Unix Printing System, Albert Einstein, and Chuck Palahniuk.

Three portals reached featured status last week: Portal:Germany, Portal:Houston, and Portal:Photography.

Three lists were featured last week: List of notable Eagle Scouts, List of The Sopranos episodes, and Former municipalities of Norway.

The following featured articles were displayed last week on the Main Page as Today's featured article: Salvador Dalí, Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts of America), J. R. R. Tolkien, Katyn massacre, San Francisco, California, W. S. Gilbert, and Star.

The following featured pictures were displayed last week on the Main Page as picture of the day: Wasp, Habanero chile, Matterhorn, Mohammed Alim Khan, Florence Owens Thompson, Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel, and Cheetah.

Four pictures were featured last week:

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SPV

Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

Tables can now be made sortable via JavaScript. Any table with class="sortable" will have arrows in each of its header cells, and clicking them will cause the table to sort according to that column's values. For instance, a table of countries could be sorted by the user according to country name, GDP, currency code, etc. A demonstration of the script can be viewed here. As always, the change might not be live for several days. (patch by Stuart Langridge, Lupin, Jonathan Snook, Robert Nyman, and Simetrical; r17803, bug 2001)

An extension written by Steve Sanbeg, Labeled Section Transclusion, was committed to the MediaWiki codebase in Subversion by Nick Jenkins. While it is not yet enabled on any Wikimedia site, it may be in the future. The extension allows pieces of pages to be transcluded without transcluding the entire page. It was requested for use on Wikisource in particular at bug 5881, where Dovi Jacobs and others noted how useful it would be for including things such as Bible verses.

A minor bug in retroactive autoblocking, where a user could be retroactively autoblocked even if the block failed, was fixed. (Andrew Garrett, r17802)

Several interface changes were made this week:

Some updates were made to non-English messages, specifically:

Internationalization help is always appreciated! See m:Localization statistics for how complete the translations of languages you know are, and post any updates to Mediazilla.

SPV

The Report On Lengthy Litigation

The Arbitration Committee opened three cases this week, and closed one case.

Closed case

New cases

Evidence phase

Voting phase

Upcoming case