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The Signpost
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WP:POST/1
25 November 2015

 

2015-11-25

Wikidata: the new Rosetta Stone

Data in itself is not knowledge. It is information. With the emergence of a new, very dense ecology of data that is accessible to everybody, we run the risk of trying to over-simplify the world: a description, no matter how detailed, will not necessarily make us understand something. Knowing that Dostoyevsky was born in 1821 and died in 1881 and that he was an existentialist is not the same as understanding Dostoyevsky or existentialism. Now more than ever, we need tools that will help us to contextualise information, to develop our own point of view, and to generate knowledge based on this information, in order to promote a society with a strong critical spirit. And we shouldn’t forget that data in itself is not objective either, even though it supposedly purports to be neutral. Data selection is a bias in itself. The decision of whether or not to analyse the gender, origin, religion, height, eye colour, political position, or nationality of a human group can condition the subsequent analysis. Codifying or failing to codify a particular item of information within a data set can both inform and disguise a particular reality. Data is useless without interpretation.

The impact of the emergence of Wikipedia on traditional print encyclopaedias is common knowledge. What will be the impact of Wikidata? In line with the wiki philosophy, the work is done collaboratively in an asymmetric but ongoing process. We can all collaborate in the creation and maintenance of the content, but also of the vocabulary, of the properties of different items, and of the taxonomies used to classify the information. We are deciding how to organise existing information about the world, and we are doing it in an open, participatory manner, as an example of the potential of technology. We know that human knowledge evolves cumulatively, and that Western culture is essentially inherited. Our reality is determined, in a sense, through the technological, social, political, and philosophical advances of those who came before us. This means that today’s generations don’t have to discover electricity all over again, for example. We enjoy the fruits of the efforts of our ancestors. But the Internet, for the first time, allows us to be involved in a phenomenon that will mark human history: we are defining and generating a new information ecosystem that will become the foundation for a possible cognitive revolution. And we are lucky to be able to participate, question, and improve it as it evolves. Together, we can participate in a historic project on a par with humanity’s greatest advances. We can create a new Rosetta Stone that can serve as an open, transparent key to unlock the secrets of today’s world, and perhaps as a documentary source for future generations or civilisations. Let us take responsibility for it.


This article originally appeared on the CCCB Lab blog of the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona and is reprinted here with the permission of the author.



Reader comments

2015-11-25

Fundraising update; FDC recommendations

Wikimedia Foundation Director of Online Fundraising Megan Hernandez

In the run-up to the December fundraiser, Wikimedia Foundation Director of Online Fundraising Megan Hernandez posted another fundraising update on the Wikimedia-l mailing list (see last month's Signpost coverage of the previous update).

Some key points
  • The banner wording asking readers to donate to Wikipedia to "keep it online and ad-free", used in previous years, has been replaced with references to keeping Wikipedia "online and growing". This addresses past criticism from the community that banners incorrectly implied that the Foundation was in dire financial straits and might have to run ads to keep Wikipedia online if readers failed to donate enough money.
  • At the Wikimedia Foundation's request, Lake Research Partners ran another survey on the fundraising banners. The online survey, which took place from October 30 to November 3 (sample size n = 1,000 Wikipedia readers in the United States), specifically addressed some points that were not covered in the February survey (see previous Signpost coverage). Some findings from the survey:
    • Respondents were asked to rate three banner designs. Criteria included the banners' intrusiveness and whether they suggested an acute financial emergency, as opposed to routine fundraising to sustain a successful organisation. Most survey respondents saw the new banner texts as suggestive of routine fundraising.
    • Laptop and desktop use to access Wikipedia have further declined since February 2015, while mobile phone/smartphone and tablet access are up.
    • Asked to rate the quality of Wikipedia on a scale ranging from 0 to 10, close to two-thirds of respondents chose a rating of 8 or higher.
  • Interested readers can find mock-ups of some current banner designs on Meta:

Below is the full text of Megan's update.

AK

FDC recommendations

The Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) has published its recommendations for round 1 of the 2015–2016 Annual Plan Grant program, as summarised in the following table:

Applicant Amount requested Amount recommended Indicative recommendation
in USD (approx)
Percentage
recommended
Change in allocation
from last year
Amical Wikimedia EUR 68,000 EUR 68,000 $76,000 100.0% −17.2%
Wikimedia Argentina* USD 241,680 USD 232,500 $232,500 96.2% 9.7%
Wikimedia CH CHF 315,000 CHF 294,000 $305,000 93.3% −16.0%
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. EUR 1,500,000 EUR 1,200,000 $1,346,000 80.0% 42.9%
Wikimedia Israel* NIS 834,000 NIS 834,000 $212,000 100.0% 8.3%
Wikimedia Nederland EUR 340,000 EUR 340,000 $381,000 100.0% 11.8%
Wikimedia Serbia EUR 112,500 EUR 112,500 $126,000 100.0% 13.9%
Wikimedia Sverige SEK 2,616,000 SEK 2,616,000 $309,000 100.0% 2.3%
Wikimedia UK* GBP 310,000 GBP 277,300 $427,000 89.5% −11.7%
Wikimedia Ukraine USD 75,000 USD 75,000 $75,000 100.0% 82.2%
Wikimedia Österreich EUR 250,000 EUR 250,000 $280,000 100.0% 9.6%
Total ~ USD 4,189,000 ~$3,770,000

The FDC noted

Current voting FDC members. Left to right:
Itzik, Liam, Osmar, Michał, Anne, Matanya, Lorenzo, Mike, (Dumisani not present)
Wikimedia Germany and Wikimedia UK, the two biggest chapters involved in this round of FDC recommendations, saw the greatest discrepancies between requested and recommended funding, with the FDC recommending that they be granted 80% (Germany) and 89.5% (UK) of the amounts requested.

Wikidata costs were a particular point of contention in the FDC recommendations:

The publication of the Funds Dissemination Committee recommendations was also announced on the Wikimedia blog. The blog post contains further background on the FDC's work and methods. AK

Telephone fundraising by Wikimedia Germany sparks controversy

Members of Wikimedia Germany reported on November 20 receiving phone calls from a call centre agency thanking them for their contributions, and suggesting they increase their financial support. Wikimedia Germany's Till Mletzko confirmed that the agency's calls were indeed made on behalf of Wikimedia Germany, and that there was a parallel mailing campaign to the same effect.

Community feedback was overwhelmingly negative. Volunteers objected to the fact that the call centre employee presented himself as "working for Wikipedia" and to the nuisance factor inherent in the "cold calling" approach. Achim Raschka, a founding member and former board member of Wikimedia Germany, went so far as to suggest it might be time to release a press statement "in the name of the authors of Wikipedia", advising the public to ignore calls for donations from the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Germany.

Mletzko at first defended the action, saying that many non-profits use telephone fundraising very successfully and this was merely an attempt to find out whether the same approach might also work for Wikimedia Germany, but promised to take community feedback into account in the campaign's evaluation. On November 23 he posted an update, saying the telephone campaign would be stopped with immediate effect. 108 members from a pool of 3,000 had been called; 44% of them agreed to increase their contributions. AK



Reader comments

2015-11-25

Erasmus Prize awarded to Wikipedia; trouble on the Russian Wikipedia

The emblem of Roskomnadzor, Russia's Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications.

TASS reports that the Federal Drug Control Service of Russia (FSKN) has listed five articles on the Russian Wikipedia it wants blocked. FSKN said in a statement “Following the studies of the Russian language Wikipedia pages, four of them were recognized as forbidden ones.” Originally, five pages were listed for deletion but the fifth one had already been scrapped by the free online encyclopedia's administration. Russia’s media watchdog, Roskomnadzor, posted a tweet outlining which articles those were. (Nov. 24) L

Moscow Times reports that four Wikipedia editors met with representatives of FSKN, Roskomnadzor, and Rospotrebnadzor "to formalize channels of communication between the website and state bodies". The organizer of this meeting, Samal, was indefinitely blocked. The Times referenced a message from the "official Twitter blog" of "Russian Wikipedia", apparently referring to this tweet from Wikimedia Russia. Samal's block log states that the editor was blocked for "destructive behavior: uncoordinated actions on behalf of the Community". (Nov. 27) G

The Russian Wikipedia has been the subject of growing government interference and was briefly blocked entirely by the government in August (see previous Signpost coverage). Freedom House recently updated the status of internet freedom in Russia from "partly free" to "not free". These assessments are based on scores on a scale from 0 to 100 (0 = most free, 100 = least free); 0–30 are classed as "free", 31–60 as "partly free", 61–100 as "not free". Russia's score increased from 60 in 2014 to 62 in 2015.

[[File:|center|300px]]

The New Routemaster bus manufactured by Wrightbus.
  • Hoax edit upsets Irish factory town: The Belfast Telegraph reports that a hoax edit claiming that the bus manufacturer Wrightbus would be sold prompted rumors to spread through the town of Ballymena, causing Wrightbus employees to fear their jobs would be lost. (Nov. 27) G
  • Legal victory for the German Wikipedia: VentureBeat reports that filmmaker Evelyn Schels has lost her court battle to have her year of birth removed from her article on the German Wikipedia. Members of the Wikimedia Foundation legal department published a blog post about the legal victory. (Nov. 24) G
  • Liverpool fans take City bashing to Wikipedia: Following Liverpool’s 4–1 thrashing of Manchester City at the City of Manchester Stadium, a Liverpool fan (or set of fans) altered the stadium’s Wikipedia page. The fan(s) gave a new name to the stadium – Liverpool FC U19 training ground – while making the new Liverpool manager its owner. The changes also included listing Roberto Firmino as the stadium's groundsman, reflecting his dominant performance in the Liverpool rout. (Nov. 23) L
  • Wikipedia via Free Basics: At Medium, Nanjira Sambuli writes about the Free Basics app from the Internet.org partnership, intended to deliver affordable internet services to developing countries. She writes "Over at the Wikipedia app, I couldn’t even see the option to edit a news article, let alone it redirecting me to the paid-for Internet. My hypothesis: it creates the notion that Wikipedia is to be consumed, and not necessarily contributed to. Imagine that carried across to Wikipedia as many of us know it!" (Nov. 22)
  • "Scientific Wikipedia" Idea deemed best idea at SeNSE Pitch Night Competition: An idea to create a ‘Scientific Wikipedia’ won top spot at the 2015 Pitch Night Competition, organized by SeNSE, a Baton Rouge–based non-profit organization supporting entrepreneurship. Matthew Loupe, an LSU electrical engineering graduate, came up with the idea to create an online scientific community where scientists can upload and share results of their experiments. (Nov. 20) L
  • Crew member accused of altering Wikipedia page to favor movie: According to a report by The Washington Examiner, a crew member working on the documentary The Hunting Ground has been changing the film's Wikipedia page and other pages linked to the movie. The documentary covers rape on college campuses. Edits included changes to former FSU quarterback Jameis Winston's page and deleting content on Kinsman’s accusations, changes alleged to have made the articles support the story told by the film. The matter was raised by Jimbo Wales on his talk page and is being discussed at the administrators' noticeboard, where to date there is no consensus that the editor did anything wrong, given that he declared his conflict of interest on his user page and sought talk page agreement for the changes made. (Nov. 19) L, AK



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

2015-11-25

Do Wikipedia citations mirror scholarly impact?; co-star networks in silent films

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



Reader comments

2015-11-25

Caves and stuff

The Škocjan Caves was the first World Heritage Site in Slovenia

This Signpost "Featured content" report covers material promoted from 15 to 21 November.
Text may be adapted from the respective articles and lists; see their page histories for attribution.


Adèle Exarchopoulos received several awards and nominations for her performance in Blue Is the Warmest Colour

Eight featured lists were promoted this week.

  • List of accolades received by Silver Linings Playbook (nominated by FrB.TG) Silver Linings Playbook is a 2012 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by David O. Russell. The film tells the story of a man, Patrizio "Pat" Solitano, Jr., who is released from a psychiatric hospital and moves back in with his parents. He tries to reconcile with his wife, until he meets and falls in love with a young widow, Tiffany Maxwell. It received awards and nominations in a variety of categories, and has received a total of 47 awards from 91 nominations.
  • List of video games in the Museum of Modern Art (nominated by Maplestrip) The Museum of Modern Art has selected a number of video games for its permanent Architecture and Design Collection. There were initially fourteen games in the collection, which now contains twenty-one game and a game console. Most games in the collection are playable on some level, and all are displayed in a manner to minimize the influence of nostalgia.
  • List of works by W. E. Johns (nominated by SchroCat) W.E. Johns (1893–1968) was an English writer and journalist. He wrote over 150 books and was, after Enid Blyton, "the most prolific and popular children's writer of his time". Most of Johns' work consists of the stories of Biggles. He also wrote science fiction stories and two further series of war stories (featuring the characters Worrals and Gimlet).
  • The 65th Academy Awards (nominated by Birdienest81) ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, honored films released in 1992 in the United States and took place on March 29, 1993, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. During the ceremony Oscars in 23 categories were presented.
  • List of Arsenal F.C. records and statistics (nominated by Lemonade51) Arsenal F.C. is an English professional association football club based in Holloway, London. The list encompasses the major honours won by Arsenal, records set by the club, their managers and their players. Arsenal have won 13 top-flight titles, and also hold the record for the most FA Cup wins, with 12. The club's record appearance maker is David O'Leary, who made 722 appearances between 1975 and 1993. Thierry Henry is Arsenal's record goalscorer, scoring 228 goals in total.
  • List of World Heritage Sites in Slovenia (nominated by Tone) The UNESCO World Heritage Sites are places of importance to cultural or natural heritage as described in the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, established in 1972. Slovenia succeeded the convention in 1992, and there are currently three sites in Slovenia inscribed on the list and five sites on the tentative list.
  • List of international goals scored by David Healy (nominated by The Rambling Man) David Healy is a retired association footballer, who represented the Northern Ireland national football team between 2000 and 2013. During his international career, he played 95 matches in which he scored 36 goals, becoming his country's top scorer. He is also the only Northern Ireland player to have scored two international hat-tricks.
  • List of accolades received by Blue Is the Warmest Colour (nominated by Cowlibob) Blue Is the Warmest Colour is a 2013 French romantic coming-of-age drama film directed by Abdellatif Kechiche. The screenplay, also co-written by Kechiche, was based on Julie Maroh's 2010 graphic novel of the same name. The film revolves around Adèle, a French teenager who discovers desire and freedom when a blue-haired aspiring painter enters her life. The film charts their relationship from Adele's high school years to her early adult life and career as a school teacher. It garnered awards and nominations in a variety of categories with particular praise for Kechiche's direction, and the performances of Exarchopoulos and Seydoux, winning a total of 51 awards from 100 nominations

Five featured pictures were promoted this week.



Reader comments

2015-11-25

J'en ai ras le bol

The week following the Paris attacks (#5) shows those events very much on our minds, though some much less serious events are occupying other headlines. The appearance of a British socialite and current-U.K. reality show contestant Lady Colin Campbell at #1 seems a bit odd, but at least she beat out ISIL (#2). The much-touted fight between Holly Holm (#3) and Ronda Rousey (#4) at UFC 193 (#15) drew eyes away from more serious matters, as did Charlie Sheen (#6). Adele (#8), and her finally released new album (#20), maintains a place on the chart. More Paris or terrorism-related topics also appear deeper in the chart, with Anonymous (group) at #11, Mali at #14, Eagles of Death Metal at #16, ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi at #18, and Syria at #22.

For the full top-25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions. For a list of the most edited articles of the week, see here.

For the week of November 15 to 21, 2015, the ten most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:

Rank Article Class Views Image Notes
1 Lady Colin Campbell Start-Class 2,969,403 Campbell is a British socialite who is now appearing on the new season of Britain's I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, which debuted on November 15. If we did not have access to mobile views, this article would not top the list. But people shading their phone screens while googling Lady Campbell, counting for 86% of the views of this article, pushed it to #1 for the week. Frankly 86% is a really high mobile count, and frankly I don't understand the popularity, at least at the very high level of 2.9 million views. This reality series is one whose American version floundered, but has enjoyed great success elsewhere including in Britain, and in Germany where it is nicknamed "Das Dschungelcamp". And also, if Lady C. is needed to drop ISIS/ISIL out of the top spot, I'm fine with it.
2 Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant C-class 2,600,177
Up from #6 last week, and almost triple last week's 896,501 views. If they are to be believed, the repellent non-state has finally managed to extend its war beyond its shredded borders and into the heart of the West. This is an unprecedented escalation from them, but then, if there's one thing they've proven themselves good at in the last few years, it's unprecedented escalation. Some see it as desperation; ISIL have suffered numerous substantial losses from bombing and Kurdish incursions. Others have pondered if it marks the first shot in a new generational conflict.
3 Holly Holm C-class 1,840,198
At UFC 193 (#15) on November 15, the photogenic fighting phenomenon Ronda Rousey (#4) ended her 12-fight streak and handed her title to Holm in a shocking second-round knockout. Holm is the first person to win championships in both boxing and mixed martial arts.
4 Ronda Rousey B-class 1,793,510
Up from #17 and 388,759 views last week, after falling to Holly Holm (#3). Last time she was on here, the former UFC women's bantamweight champion topped the list with over 2 million hits.
5 November 2015 Paris attacks B-class 1,688,712
Often 1.6 million views is more than enough to top this chart. Of course, the appearance of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant at #2 this week is because of this tragic event.
6 Charlie Sheen B-class 1,409,179
This is the first time that the circus of craziness that is Mr. Sheen's life appears on the Top 25, and that's only because the Top 25 started in January 2013. His "winning" meme dates from the ancient days of 2011. On November 17, 2015, Sheen publicly revealed that he was HIV positive, having been diagnosed roughly four years earlier (whether it was pre or post "winning" I cannot tell.) Sheen claims that since 2011 he has paid extortionists approximately $10 million to keep his HIV positive status secret.
7 Jessica Jones C-class 973,228
The Netflix series (#12) based on this Marvel Comics superhero, starring Krysten Ritter (pictured), debuted on November 20, 2015.
8 Adele C-class 903,238
Up from #16 and 378,266 views last week, as the popular singer's new album 25 (#20) was released on November 20.
9 Prem Ratan Dhan Payo Start-Class 877,755
Down also slightly from 920,622 views last week. Salman Khan (pictured) is having a good year. His Eid opener Bajrangi Bhaijaan is currently the second-highest-grossing Bollywood film of all time, and now this Diwali event film has beaten that film's record-breaking opening day, taking Rs 400 million ($6.1 million).
10 Spectre (2015 film) C-class 824,240
The latest Bond film is down from three consecutive weeks at #3, but still with a very healthy 824,240 views. As of November 22, the film has now grossed over $675 million worldwide.
  • J'en ai ras le bol is a French expression, literally translating to "I have a bowl full of it", but essentially meaning "I am sick and tired of this."




Reader comments

2015-11-25

Third Palestine–Israel case closes; Voting begins

For this week's Arbitration Report: another long-running case has been closed, while the voting process for this year's Arbitration Committee Elections has begun.

On 22 November, a little under three months since it opened in late August, the Palestine–Israel articles 3 case has been closed. The case stemmed from a dispute in the topic-area of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; allegations of copyright violation were the proximate cause, along with sockpuppetry investigations, various ethnicity-related personal attacks, and the resultant noticeboard threads. Peace in the Middle East has been a long-standing problem in the real world, where tensions run especially high, even in comparison to the normally higher tensions that accompany discussion of political and religious views. Wikipedia is not immune to outside tensions being imported into on-wiki disputes, unfortunately. The strength of the Five Pillars is often tested in this particular topic-area, especially neutrality and civility, as the prior two ArbCom cases indicate.

The specifics of the initiation of this ArbCom case, ARBPIA3, were related to the use of administrative tools while blocked. There was a Level 1 emergency desysop, which one sitting arbitrator noted was an "extremely rare" procedure, on that specific basis. Although administrators are held to a higher standard with regard to civility and other behavioral criteria, the stated cause of the emergency desysop on 18 August was the tool use. The full ArbCom case, which was accepted, was explicitly of a scope not specific to the particulars of the events involving the small number of named parties, but rather "with the aim of reviewing... existing sanction provisions in the prior Palestine–Israel articles case" of 2009; later amended in 2011 (as well as here), and related motions were also passed in 2012.

...the "area of conflict" shall be defined as it was defined in the (2008) Palestine–Israel articles case, encompassing the entire set of Arab-Israeli conflict-related articles, broadly interpreted... throughout the project.     —WP:ARBPIA2, in 2009

The following remedies were the result of the ARBPIA3 case:

All anonymous IP editors and accounts with less than 500 edits and 30 days tenure are prohibited from editing any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. This prohibition may be enforced by reverts, page protections, blocks, the use of Pending Changes, and appropriate edit filters.

Uninvolved administrators are encouraged to monitor the articles covered by discretionary sanctions in the original Palestine–Israel case to ensure compliance. To assist in this, administrators are reminded that:

    —WP:ARBPIA3, in 2015

The specific portion of the remedy which permits discretionary-sanctions reverts of new editors and new usernames (those who have been editing for less than one month and/or have fewer than 500 edits) was first utilized in summer 2015 during the GamerGate case, another topic-area which also involves high tensions and sockpuppetry. The handling of both these cases have been mentioned during the ongoing ArbCom election process.

Table of the unofficial advertised voter-guides[a] by individual wikipedians.

guide Cal. Cas. Drm. Gam. Gor. Haw. Hul. Kei. Kel. Kev. Kir. Kud. Lfa. Mah. Mar. NEE. Opa. Ric. Thr. Tim. Wil.
Tot.[b] Yes
70%
5th
Yes+
91%
2nd
Yes+
84%
4th
No
27%
14th
Low
46%
9th[c]
No--
10%
18th
No
33%
10th
Yes~
57%
7th
Yes+
88%
3rd
No--
13%
17th
No
30%
11th
Yes~
54%
8th
No
28%
13th
No--
4%
20th
No--
9%
19th
Yes~
61%
6th
Yes+
95%
1st
No
27%
15th
No
26%
16th
Out
71%
5th
No
30%
12th
AGK Yes ?? Yes No No No No No Yes No Yes mu[d] Yes ?? No No ?? No mu ?? Yes
Beg. No Yes Yes No No No Yes No Yes No No No No No No mu Yes mu No mu No
Bis. ?? Yes Yes ?? No No No No Yes No No No No No No No Yes mu No ?? No
Boi. Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No Yes Yes No-- No Yes mu No No Yes Yes No No y No
Carc. Yes~ Yes Yes No Yes No No~ Yes Yes No No No~ Yes No No Yes Yes No No~ n~ No~
Carr. No Yes+ Yes+ No-- No No Yes No Yes No-- No-- No No No No-- Yes Yes+ No No y Yes
Col.[e] No No 'C' No No Yes+ 'C' No No Yes+ Yes+ No n No Yes No 'C' Yes+ 'C' 'C' Yes
Eal. mu Yes+ Yes+ No No No~ mu mu Yes No No No No No~ No Yes Yes No No y mu
Elo. Yes ?? Yes Yes Yes No No Yes~ Yes No~ Yes Yes Yes No No No Yes No Yes n No
Fuz. Yes Yes ?? Yes Yes ?? ?? Yes ?? ?? Yes ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? Yes ?? ?? ?? ??
HJM. Yes Yes Yes mu Yes mu No Yes Yes No mu Yes Yes No No No Yes No Yes mu No
Cat. [f] No ?? Yes No Yes No No Yes mu Yes Yes No Yes ?? No Yes ?? Yes No ?? No
MON. Yes Yes Yes No No mu mu No Yes No No Yes No No No No Yes Yes No y mu
MZM. Yes Yes No No No Yes Yes No Yes No No Yes No Yes No Yes Yes No No mu Yes
Pet. No Yes Yes No No No Yes No Yes No-- No-- No No No Yes Yes Yes No No n Yes
Pld. No No Yes No No No mu No Yes+ No No Yes+ No-- No No Yes+ No Yes Yes+ y+ No
Rea. Yes~ Yes+ Yes+ Yes Yes No No Yes+ Yes No-- No-- Yes+ No No-- mu No Yes+ No No y+ No
Reg. mu Yes Yes mu No mu mu Yes Yes No No Yes No No No Yes Yes mu No y mu
SBJ. No Yes No No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No Yes No No n No
Sil.[g] Yes Yes+ Yes+ mu Yes~ No-- No mu Yes No~ No~ Yes~ mu No-- No-- mu Yes+ Yes mu ~y No--
Sja. Yes Yes No Yes Yes No Yes mu Yes mu mu No Yes No No Yes mu No Yes n mu
Sma. Yes Yes No Yes Yes mu Yes Yes Yes Yes mu No No No mu No Yes No No y No
Own. Yes~ Yes Yes No No No No Yes Yes No No Yes~ No No~ No Yes Yes Yes No y Yes
Try. Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No Yes No No Yes Yes No No No Yes Yes No Yes y No
Wor. Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No Yes Yes No-- Yes Yes mu No No Yes mu No mu mu No
Yng. Yes Yes+ Yes+ No No No mu Yes Yes+ No No Yes No No No Yes Yes+ No No y+ mu

As we reported last week, there are 20 candidates in 2015, seeking to fill up to nine open seats on the Committee. The number of candidates is now at 20 after one editor announced their withdrawal from the election on 25 November. As the election must go on, on 23 November at 00:00 UTC, voting for the 2015 election began via Special:SecurePoll. Polls will remain open to eligible voters (currently unblocked usernames registered before 28 October with 150+ edits to mainspace before 1 November) through 6 December at 23:59 UTC.

More than 500 Wikipedians cast votes during the first 24 hours of polling, a figure which was markedly higher than in the previous year, and by 28 November over 2000 votes had been cast. Voter-participation in the 2014 ArbCom election was 593 legitimate non-duplicate ballots, lower than in previous years. After a series of discussions at WP:AN and User talk:Jimbo Wales, among other places, consensus developed that during 2015 elections a WP:MassMessage would be sent out to the roughly one hundred thousand eligible ArbCom voters, via their user talk pages. Election commissioner Mdann52 helped implement the actual message.

To learn more about the candidates, review their campaign-statements, which link to their contributions and other information about them. Questions for candidates are ongoing, and will continue throughout the voting-period. In addition, there are now more voter-guides than there are candidates; written by individual wikipedians, these guides provide arb-candidate criteria, and often specific support/oppose advice (see table at right), for editors unfamiliar with ArbCom, or unfamiliar with specific candidates. At least a dozen other candidate-analysis pieces have been published on-wiki, plus a special report last week in the Signpost.

As there has been one withdrawal since the voting began, and since candidates will continue to answer questions throughout the 6 December close of the SecurePoll, please note that voters "may revisit and change their decisions" by returning to the voting booth and re-entering their revised preferences. Finally, for technical reasons, voters should cast their vote by "an hour before the close of voting" or so, to ensure their vote will be counted.

Editor's note: In the interest of disclosure, one of the 20 candidates in the election is a co-editor-in-chief of the Signpost. They are temporarily inactive with regard to their election-related editorial duties at the Signpost and will remain so for at least the remaining duration of the election. As of 16 November, Go Phightins! has taken the reins as sole editor-in-chief.

  1. ^ The voter-guides by Ched and Gerda Arendt were not included in this summary-table, since those voter-guide authors purposely give no plain recommendations about supporting or opposing any of the specifically named candidates.
  2. ^ This quasi-predictive information is calculated using the ArbCom election procedures, but applied solely to the unofficial advertised voter-guides listed here, rather than to all the votes cast by the ArbCom electorate. Specifically, the percentages used to rank each candidate are the number of voter-guide supports, divided by the sum of the voter-guide supports plus the voter-guide opposes, eliding neutral and undecided voter-guides on a candidate-by-candidate basis. The percentages shown do have some rough predictive powers (the top three percentages are more likely to win spots out of of the nine seats available, than the bottom three percentages, for instance), but please note that publishing a voter-guide is not restricted in any fashion. Thus, these raw totals are gauged from a self-selected subset of wikipedians who happened to have high interest in the ArbCom elections, and therefore these 'pundits' will have an indeterminate correlation with the demographics of the actual electorate. Take these numbers with a large grain of salt. The Signpost thanks Ealdgyth for their work on an original chart that inspired this one.
  3. ^ Minimum threshold for winning a seat on WP:ARBCOM is 50% thus the 'pundits' predict it is possible the 9th seat will be vacant.
  4. ^ This designation was inspired by a comment made by one of the candidates, about an earlier Signpost piece.
  5. ^ The "recommended" candidates of this user's guide were renderered as Green tickY+, the "B passes" are Green tickY, the "C passes" are uncolored, with the "fails" rendered as Red XN.
  6. ^ There are rumors that this voter-guide may not be entirely serious, but it is listed at the official location, and does specify several specific recommendations about specifically named candidates.
  7. ^ The markings for this user's guide are predictions of the likelihood of successfully being elected, which is very different from personal support/neutral/oppose information that most voter-guides provide.



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2015-11-25

Tech news in brief

The following content has been republished as-is from the Tech News weekly report.



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2015-11-25

Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Deutschland urge Reiss Engelhorn Museum to reconsider suit over public domain works of art

The following content has been republished from the Wikimedia Blog. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author alone; responses and critical commentary are invited in the comments section. For more information on this partnership see our content guidelines.

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A 1777 landscape by Ferdinand Kobell, one of the images on Wikimedia Commons potentially affected by the lawsuit.

The Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Deutschland believe that the Reiss Engelhorn Museum’s views are mistaken. Copyright law should not be misused to attempt to control the dissemination of works of art that have long been in the public domain, such as the paintings housed in the Reiss Engelhorn Museum. The intent of copyright is to reward creativity and originality, not to create new rights limiting the online sharing of images of public domain works. Moreover, even if German copyright law is found to provide some rights over these images, we believe that using those rights to prevent sharing of public domain works runs counter to the mission of the Reiss Engelhorn Museum and the City of Mannheim and impoverishes the cultural heritage of people worldwide.

Many cultural institutions have made it their mission to make their collections more accessible to people around the world. In October, the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg, Germany made its collection available for free online. Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum has provided free online access to all of its paintings, including the ability to download and use the reproductions under the CC0 Public Domain Dedication license. In Denmark, SMK (Statens Museum for Kunst, The National Gallery of Denmark) has released its digital images and videos under the CC-BY license. The British Library and the Japan Center for Asian Historical Records jointly released more than 200 Japanese and Chinese prints into the public domain.

These cultural institutions are upholding the values of the public domain and protecting the right to take part in our cultural heritage. The Reiss Engelhorn Museum’s attempt to create new copyright in public domain works goes against European principles on the public domain.

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A 1863 portrait of Seligmann Ladenburg by Johann Jakob Serr, one of the images on Wikimedia Commons potentially affected by the lawsuit.

In a Communication on August 11, 2008, the European Commission wrote: “it is important to stress the importance of keeping public domain works accessible after a format shift. In other words, works in the public domain should stay there once digitised and be made accessible through the internet.” This was reinforced by the Europeana Charta of 2010 that reads: “No other intellectual property right must be used to reconstitute exclusivity over Public Domain material. The Public Domain is an integral element of the internal balance of the copyright system. This internal balance must not be manipulated by attempts to reconstitute or obtain exclusive control via regulations that are external to copyright”.

Over the years, the Wikimedia movement has enjoyed rich partnerships with museums and galleries around the world through the GLAM-Wiki initiative, which helps cultural institutions share their resources with the world through collaborative projects with experienced Wikipedia editors. The relationships have allowed millions of people from around the globe to access and enjoy institutional collections in places they may never have the chance to visit. Wikimedia Deutschland alone has worked with more than 30 museums in Germany to make their collections freely available to anyone, anywhere through the Wikimedia projects. These partnerships are part of a vital effort to allow cultural institutions and Wikimedia to serve their missions of free knowledge and shared culture.

People around the world use Wikipedia to discover and understand the world around them. Thanks to the Internet, many traditional barriers to knowledge and learning have disappeared. Denying online access to images in the public domain prevents people from exploring our shared global cultural heritage. We urge the Reiss Engelhorn Museum to reconsider its position and work with the Wikimedia community to make their public domain works more broadly available.

A German-language statement from Wikimedia Deutschland is available on their blog. A full list of the images affected is on Wikimedia Commons.

Michelle Paulson and Geoff Brigham are the Legal Director and General Counsel, respectively, at the Wikimedia Foundation.



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