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9 October 2006

 

2006-10-09

Interview with Board member Erik Möller

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By Flcelloguy

This week, the Signpost caught up with newly-elected Board of Trustees member Erik Möller, who won the elections held last month. (See archived story.) We asked Möller a few questions pertaining to both his role in the Board and his thoughts on the election in the interview.

1. Congratulations on your election! First, is there anything you would like to say to all Wikimedians? Those who supported you in the election? Those who didn't support you? The other candidates?

I would, but given that this is the English Wikipedia, and the Wikimedia Foundation is an international, multilingual organization with many projects, I've already done so in a message on foundation-l instead. :-) I suggest that anyone interested in working on the Foundation level subscribe to that mailing list, as this is the place where important organizational announcements are made and key discussions take place.

2. Reflecting back on the elections in retrospect, what changes would you have made, if any? Do you think the elections were fair? As a Board member who will indubitably influence the next election, what changes do you think can (or should) be made next time?

The three candidates with the most votes all have Foundation-level experience. Indeed, Oscar, who came in third, is not an English Wikipedian at all. The two elected members of the Board are not native English speakers. All this indicates to me that the process is reasonably fair and open, and the frequently expressed fear of a total dominance of the English Wikipedia, the United States, or the English language was not truly justified.
We do have the core problem of operating with a very small Board, and I remain committed to expanding it very soon, with a majority of the Board members being community-elected. A Board size of 9 has frequently been cited, and that is going to be my position at the Board retreat later this month in Frankfurt as well. It is not clear at this time who will elect future Board members: anyone with enough edits, some defined group of legal members, delegates? I'm biased against delegation of votes, but am somewhat supportive of a legal membership model, if we can minimize the risk of a hostile takeover.
I will push for an extensive security review of the election process before the next election. This review will focus on minimizing the risk of results being leaked or tampered with. I also believe that the process itself needs to be managed by an independent third party with no interest in the outcome. Angela and I have already discussed this with Benjamin Mako Hill of the Debian project, who is interested in advising us on this issue.
As for the election method used, some people have fairly strong reservations about approval voting. Personally, I tend to be in favor of this method, though I will listen carefully to the objections people have. It might be interesting to examine anonymized result data to determine the extent of strategic voting that took place. I think we need to be a little more rigid in enforcing standards regarding the official election statements, while allowing and encouraging candidates to post their own campaign platforms linked from the official statements.

3. You've had a long history of contributions to Wikimedia projects, including a number of disputes, most significantly your resignation as Chief Research Officer, stemming from what you called "personal differences and a fundamental disagreement about the nature and scope of the role", a "personality conflict" between yourself and current Board member Anthere, as well as tensions between you and Jimbo. Both Jimbo and Anthere are still currently on the Board. How well do you think you will work with them this time as a Board member? What has changed since last time? How will the past affect your relationships with both Anthere and Jimbo?

In August 2005, the Foundation was still entirely run by its Board of Trustees, which at the time really mostly meant Jimmy, Angela and Anthere. This is fairly unusual for a non-profit -- see this typical definition of Board duties, which draws a sharp distinction between the oversight role of the Board and the role of executive staff. Effectively, at the time I was the CRO, the Board was the executive of the Foundation. This only began to change months after my resignation as CRO, with the creation of the committees in January, and the decision to hire Brad Patrick as interim CEO in June. Even now, we have not identified who our long term CEO is going to be.
Under these circumstances, it was inevitable for anyone taking on executive responsibilities to clash with the Board. As CRO, I tried to build partnerships and get serious development projects going. I was asked not to pursue such partnerships anymore. Ideas without a strategy for implementing them are pointless, so I resigned and greatly reduced my involvement in the Foundation until the first reform steps were taken.
I believe that these reform steps have already greatly reduced the risk of Board-level conflicts and Board member burn-out. However, as Angela's resignation has shown, there are still conflicts and tension. To reduce them further, I believe individual Board members need to focus on their personal strengths, and primarily work through those committees where they can make the best use of them. For myself, that would be (speaking tentatively) the Special Projects committee, the Technical Committee, and to a lesser extent, the Chapters Committee.
I do think that the Board and the organization have changed in such a way that I can fit in. This is, of course, thanks to the Board itself -- Anthere, Jimmy, Angela and Michael have together taken the steps necessary to make the organization more functional and more scalable. Of course, there is a personal side as well. To this end, I have been communicating a great deal with Anthere and Jimmy, to better understand their positions and to build a positive working relationship. I'm confident that we will be able to work together well if we treat each other as equals, and so far, this seems to be the case.

4. Another conflict you've had is when you were temporarily blocked and de-sysoped by Foundation employee Danny Wool, both here and on Meta-Wiki, in April of this year for unprotecting two articles and allegedly violating "Office Action" policy, although you were unaware of the actions at the time. (See archived story.) The action by Wool was later overturned on both the English Wikipedia and Meta. Do you think this conflict will affect your dealings as a Board member? How do you think it will impact your workings with Danny?

Danny and I discussed this issue at Wikimania. As Greg Maxwell's photo documents, we made our peace with each other when Michael Davis sneaked up on us and tried to eat us both. The issue was, essentially, this: There was a complaint regarding the NewsMax article in Wikipedia. Some people felt that the best way to resolve it was to use an office action that would not be labeled as such to avoid attracting attention (which, as we know, it usually does). In fact, an attempt to label it as such was reverted. Not having the full picture, I saw it as a personal act by Danny as a Wikipedia sysop. I considered the possibility that it was an explicitly unlabeled office action so unlikely as to not be worth investigating (as, in my opinion, such an unlabeled action would only attract more attention than a labeled one). I did not revert the "stubbification" of the page, but unprotected it so others could work on improving it. The documented reaction followed.
Danny did, of course, try to do the right thing, and I should have communicated with the office before unprotecting the page. That said, I do believe there is also consensus that there was a bit of an overreaction, and that the course of action that was being followed was not exactly optimal. I have already thought a lot about ways to reform the office process, and will have an in-depth discussion about this with the Board, Brad and Danny at the Board retreat at the latest.
One thing that is important to me is that nobody should be worried that they will be punished drastically unless they are explicitly going against a Foundation-level decision. We should not edit in fear, one of another. :-)

5. In an interview with the Signpost last month, you commented that it would be critical to "establish a high level of transparency and low barriers to entry," and in your platform, you expanded on this theme by advocating more openness within committees and the Foundation in general. Would you mind clarifying this? How would you accomplish this?

The first step is to just see what is going on, so I am subscribing to many different mailing lists and observing wikis I previously did not have access to. After 4-8 weeks of observation, I will propose some first steps of reform, probably in the direction of changing some access policies and defining a process by which previously confidential information can be made public when it is no longer so. Watch foundation-l for a posting from me on the matter. I've also taken a first step in reforming (or more accurately, implementing) the access policy of the internal wiki by creating and testing a process through which existing members can nominate new ones.
In the committees, I think we need to distinguish between the right to know what is going on, and the right to participate. We also need to make a distinction between work processes, and potentials and outcomes. I believe all committees must be held to a high standard of reporting both potentials and outcomes, but processes with well-defined short term results are sometimes best left closed so people can actually get work done without having to constantly justify what they are doing to outsiders. But this is just my current thinking and likely to change after observation.
One of the big, big issues that has already become fairly clear is that we need advertise much more clearly in what areas of the Foundation volunteers can help and how they can do so. The first step in this direction could be a well-organized "Volunteer tasks" page on Meta. The Foundation itself also needs to become a bit more visible to the community. Here I've already proposed, for example, having a little sidebar box on the projects that links to pages on the Wikimedia Foundation website, allowing people to easily discover what the organization is doing and how they can be part of it. When the community seeks ways to get involved proactively, the pressure to make processes more transparent and participatory will become bottom-up rather than top-down.

6. You also advocated a need to invite more experts as one of the most pressing issues for Wikipedia, saying that "we need to make a serious call to the scientific community to participate, and provide them with easy channels to do so." How important is this? As a Board member, what actions would you take to ensure that this happens?

Once Brion has completed his work on single login, I want us to have a focused discussion to define very precisely what functionality we will implement to identify "stable" versions of articles. Solving the well-known problem that we don't distinguish between an unreviewed edit from 5 minutes ago and an article that has grown over 5 years should be pretty high on our agenda to gain credibility with academia, I think. Only when this is done should we approach experts seriously, in order to have a good answer to the inevitable questions. An answer of the "We do" type, not the "We are thinking about .." type.
When we are happy with our toolset, there are all kinds of outreach programs we can pursue. We have Wikimedians in universities, libraries, archives -- we only need to "activate" them and give them a message they can disseminate. This must be an international effort where chapters can play an important role. Beyond contributing to Wikipedia and its sister projects (as community members, or as reviewers), we can help the scientific community to use communication tools like IRC and, in the process, discover Wikimedia. A Wikimedia Expert Network which we build and organize (without a need for the experts to necessarily be part of our projects) seems like a good idea to me.
Beyond calls for help, one of the best ways to get scientists involved is to work with their data. There are some very specific efforts in this direction. You may want to keep an eye on WiktionaryZ, but do keep in mind that I'm currently managing that project on the technical level and get paid for doing so, so as Board member, I have a conflict of interest and must recuse myself from Foundation-level decisions about it.

7. What other issues do you plan to address right now as a Board member? How so?

Pretty much the ones I described in my platform. I'm working on better sorting out the various priorities. I will post a first report on foundation-l about my activities and plans soon.

8. You've also worked as a developer in the past and contributed to MediaWiki. From your perspective as a Board member, how important are technical changes and advances in the software? What is the most significant update to date in MediaWiki? What do you think is the biggest change that should be made? Do you plan to continue working on the technical side while serving on the Board?

MediaWiki 1.3 and 1.5 were pretty big upgrades respectively. 1.3 added a completely new look and feel (the current Monobook skin with all its spiffy features like user JavaScript) as well as parametrized templates and categories, and 1.5 included very deep and important changes in the database, which allowed us to have permanent links to the current revisions of articles, for example. It also finalized the transition to UTF-8 in all wikis.
Technology is absolutely critical to everything we are doing. Prioritizing future developments is very, very tricky, especially with only two full-time developers. One of the questions I want us to answer at the Board retreat is how much development we want to do in-house, and how much we want to delegate to other individuals and organizatons. Right now the biggest pending definite changes are single login and the aforementioned quality assurance functionality. There is some other cool stuff in the works, but none of it is definite enough to mention here yet.
I intend to continue my work around WiktionaryZ, but will probably not have time for much additional work on MediaWiki.

9. What would you say to the Wikimedia and more specifically, the Wikipedia community, right now? How do you think your role as a Board member will influence Wikimedia and Wikipedia? What changes do you project to Wikimedia and Wikipedia at the end of your term in July 2007? Do you plan on running for re-election?

Please get involved in Foundation work. Tell us about your qualifications, and we will try to find areas for you to help. You can do this publicly on foundation-l, privately by speaking to a Board member, or even by contacting the Wikimedia Foundation office or one of the chapters (see contact information). I don't know what impact I can and will have, but I will do my best. I appreciate and invite feedback on what I should spend my time on.
I hate making predictions, though I will make one. I do anticipate that through 2007, Wikimedia will make huge gains in credibility and build some very powerful and successful partnerships around the world. More broadly, I believe the next year will, very much, be "the year of the wiki," and that open collaboration will be widely recognized as essential to solving global problems.
I'm very likely to run for re-election, after all, my term is only very short to begin with. But if I can help it, there will be a few more open seats on the Board by the time.

10. Finally, is there anything else you want to mention?

I fear I've already talked too much, as usual. But thanks for asking. :-)



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2006-10-09

Wall Street Journal associates Wikipedia with Grupthink

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By Michael Snow

In a twist on the charge sometimes leveled at Wikipedia editors, the Wall Street Journal included Wikipedia in its discussion of Grupthink last week (no, that's not a misspelling, although it's sometimes written Grūpthink).

Grupthink, the subject of a Wednesday piece by Journal columnist Aaron Rutkoff, is actually a website that allows users to create and run polls on virtually any subject imaginable. As one example of this, Rutkoff noted a Wikipedia Showdown poll, which asks site users to pick "the weirdest, funniest, craziest, and most bizarre entries" Wikipedia carries.

Leading the poll, which started running 10 May, is the List of fictional expletives. Lists were actually rather popular choices in the poll, such as List of English words containing Q not followed by U (which is also a featured list on Wikipedia), "List of songs featuring cowbells" (despite the fact that the article has since been deleted), and of course Lists of lists. Other poll options included Groupthink (inevitably), the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Nihilartikel, and the always-popular Heavy metal umlaut (see archived story).

A cowbell segue

The deleted article on songs with cowbells also made an appearance in Sunday's New York Times as well. This was in an article exploring several recent discussions on Articles for deletion; also included were Pooky (merged), Chuck Greene (deleted), and the Constantian Society (kept). The most interesting case was Diane Farrell, a Connecticut congressional candidate whose article was deleted in July and re-created three different times. The third time, which came after the appearance of the Times story, led to a reconsideration of the original deletion because the content was not identical and presented new arguments for her notability.

Meanwhile, Wikipedia seems to be a fairly popular resource with the Grupthink community (see [1]). Another poll currently has Wikipedia leading in response to the question of what is the "best open source project".

Shockingly, considering the way internet phenomena are documented on Wikipedia, nobody had attempted to create an article on Grupthink at the time the Wall Street Journal wrote about it. It did show up as an external link related to the Choose Your Own Adventure series (someone had started a group of polls structured in a similar fashion), but no other articles mentioned it and there were no signs of a linkspam campaign. Grupthink did appear as a "requested article" listed on the Culture and fine arts subpage, under "Internet and tech culture - Miscellaneous".



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2006-10-09

Account used to create paid corporate entries shut down

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By Michael Snow

The Wikipedia account of a business selling its services in creating Wikipedia articles was blocked by Jimbo Wales, after a truce over the ethical concerns involved broke down. User:MyWikiBiz has been blocked indefinitely, and Wales deleted two of the articles created as a result.

The company MyWikiBiz.com, the brainchild of Pennsylvania marketer Gregory Kohs, announced in August that it was offering to create Wikipedia articles for companies, at prices ranging from $49 to $99 (see archived story). This caught Wales's attention, leading him to block MyWikiBiz temporarily. He unblocked the account after a phone conversation in which they discussed the possibility of Kohs "creating" articles by posting them on his own website, licensed under the GFDL. Uninvolved Wikipedia editors could then decide independently whether to transfer the articles over.

The following week, MyWikiBiz was blocked for a week after leaving comments advertising his services on Articles for deletion discussions (the comments were followed by emoticons, and Kohs says they were tongue-in-cheek). A request for arbitration was also made by Cyde, who observed that MyWikiBiz was also actively nominating articles about businesses for deletion, raising the possibility of a different kind of conflict of interest. The Arbitration Committee rejected the case, however, and Wales suggested that it was premature, noting that the conflict of interest policy was still evolving.

In September, an article was created about MyWikiBiz.com (not by Kohs, however), leading inevitably to a debate over whether to delete that. MyWikiBiz did not create any more articles directly, although at least one was created after being posted on his website.

Back to square zero

At the time of the original incident, Erik Möller (since elected to the Wikimedia Foundation board) had proposed and started a Wikipedia:Conflicts of interest page. After considerable development, this was marked as a guideline on Wednesday by Radiant! This apparently triggered the reopening of the conflict.

Kohs soon posted to the talk page, questioning the action on the grounds that Wales had called the proposal "absolutely unacceptable" in private correspondence. Wales said he was addressing the form of the proposal at the time, and because his own suggestions had been incorporated, he supported it as "a starting point for discouraging" people from "writ[ing] articles on behalf of companies for money."

Wales charged that Kohs was "trying to stir up sentiment" against him and misrepresenting the situation. Accordingly, he left a stern warning on MyWikiBiz's talk page. Kohs responded by telling Wales, "you, Sir, are now misrepresenting your very own thoughts about the efforts of MyWikiBiz.com." Wales then promptly blocked the MyWikiBiz account indefinitely, replacing the user page with an explanation and a warning to its potential customers. (Kohs's personal account, User:Thekohser, had already been blocked earlier.)

In addition to blocking the account, Wales deleted two articles produced by MyWikiBiz that Kohs had mentioned in his reply. However, one of the articles deleted, Arch Coal, had been copied from MyWikiBiz.com by another editor. This led the issue to come up for deletion review. Wales agreed that the discussion could proceed, although he called the article "a travesty of NPOV." The article was ultimately kept after a ground-up rewrite. Meanwhile, several more of the articles posted on MyWikiBiz.com were copied over by other editors after the situation flared up again.



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2006-10-09

Report from the Portuguese Wikipedia

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By Indech and JLCA

Status and community news

As of Tuesday, 9 October, 2006, the Portuguese language Wikipedia contains about 190,000 articles, making it the 8th largest Wikipedia by number of articles. It has 217 articles (approximately 1 in 837) that have been chosen as Os melhores artigos ("The best articles", equivalent to featured articles). There is no equivalent to "good articles" on the Portuguese Wikipedia, but the creation of a similar category is under discussion, although no name for it has been decided yet. Additionally creation of a peer review process is being discussed.

The choice of a featured article is slightly different from the process in the English Wikipedia. First, the article must be submitted to a vote which decides whether it should be included in the list of "the best articles". Only then can it be submitted to a second vote, that chooses which articles should appear on the Main Page.

The latest three additions to the list of melhores artigos are:

As of 9 October, 2006, 61 users of the Portuguese language Wikipedia are administrators. Administrators make up 0.05% of the total number of 120,313 registered users, and about 39% of the very active (100+ edits per month) contributors.

Recent changes

In the last few months, the Portuguese language community has made substantial transformations in Wikipedia dynamics, trying to adapt the project to the needs of its rapidly growing size (it has grown by over 130% since October 2005, when it had 82,000 articles). Resolution of some issues, such as the adoption of fair use in the Portuguese Wikipedia, has left room for redevelopment of other aspects of the project. The featured articles promotion system was redesigned, as well as the Main Page, and many other features were created, such as Imagem em destaque (Featured images), Sabia que (Did you know), Efeméride (Selected anniversaries).

Image policy

Currently, the Portuguese Wikipedia is deciding whether the local upload of media files should be disabled, redirecting all uploads to the Wikimedia Commons, as was recently decided on the Spanish Wikipedia.

WikiConcurso

In the next few days, Portuguese Wikipedia will hold the fifth edition of its WikiConcurso ("WikiContest"), whose main goal is to enhance the content of articles in a specific field. These articles must be stubs, and contestants are invited to improve them during a two-week period, at the end of which the improved articles are submitted for review and voting by fellow participants in the contest. The first four editions were very successful in achieving a good number of excellent articles, making it one of the favorite activities of the Portuguese language community.

Wikiactividade

As a result of comments made by Wikipedians in the Village Pump, regarding the absence of articles on certain Portuguese and Brazilian personalities, but already existed in Wikipedias in other languages, a project was formed with the goal of creating articles, regardless of subject. This task was named Wikiactividade ("Wikiactivity" - compare Featured articles in other languages).

Its first edition, which was held from 1 August to 31 August, required that these new articles should have at least 2,000 bytes, be properly categorized, and include interwiki links. Forty users rallied for the task, and their work resulted in the creation of 1,010 new articles.

Colaboração da semana

Inspired by good results of Wikiatividade, another idea called Colaboração da Semana (Collaboration of the week) was proposed by several members of the community. This project has just begun, with its initial focus directed towards problem articles, such as those in need of links and categories.

Differences between versions of the Portuguese language

One of the most controversial discussions in the Portuguese language Wikipedia centered on the differences between European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese. This discussion almost led to the creation of two separate Wikipedias, something considered a heresy by the majority of the Portuguese speaking community. Several discussions in the Village Pump and Meta pages threatened what most of Portuguese-speaking sysops and veteran users consider 'an effort towards unity, respect and understanding'. Many resolutions towards this goal have been approved, such as the use of neutral vocabulary in some cases, and the development of an integration culture.

Userboxes

Instead of using the German userbox solution, the community decided, after a vote, to use a similar, but different system: userboxes should be included under the domain Wikipedia:Userbox/. Userboxes in users subpages, however, are allowed.

Wiki meetings

Brazilian users in the Portuguese language Wikipedia community held their second meeting, on 5 August, 2006 in the city of São Paulo. The community of users from Portugal also recently held their first meeting, in Lisbon on 7 October, 2006.

Sister projects

Five Portuguese language sister projects began from December 2003 to August 2005. They have all grown considerably, and all but one is in the Top 10 for number of articles in the different language versions:



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2006-10-09

News and notes

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By Flcelloguy and Ral315

Accounts with '@' restricted

New accounts may no longer include the at sign (@) in their names (thanks to a bugzilla request). Users complained that many accounts with the symbol were mainly users who registered with their e-mail addresses, opening up the likelihood of spamming. In addition, many accounts with e-mail addresses as usernames were being blocked, according to username policy.

Briefly



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2006-10-09

Wikipedia in the news

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By Trödel

AfD covered in The New York Times on Sunday

"Somewhere ... between the discovery that you are listed in the phone book and, say, being knighted, sits the Wikipedia entry," begins Noam Cohen. He then describes the need for Wikipedia to delete articles. Cohen claims that about 2,000 of the 4,000 new articles are deleted each day by administrators. Cohen then features highlights from the deletion and the final decision for the following: List of songs featuring cowbells (AfD); Pooky the Teddy Bear (AfD); Chuck Greene (AfD); The Constantian Society (AfD); and Diane Farrell (AfD, AfD 2nd nom).

NEA Today

NEA Today, the monthly magazine of the National Education Association, features Wikipedia in its October issue. Cindy Long gives an overview of Wikipedia and suggests that it is "a powerful [teaching] tool for educators trying to teach information literacy in the digital age." The problem of vandalism is explained and those doing recent changes patrol are compared to "hall monitors."

Reputation of Wikipedia

The Evansville Courier Press, in Internet & Wikipedia showcase nonsense, claims "It's dangerous [to live] in the misinformation age. So much of what you hear and read is incorrect, stupid and crazy." The article then quotes articles such as spontaneous human combustion to support that thesis.

The Michigan Daily, a newspaper serving the University of Michigan, discusses the Wikipedia articles on the Michigan gubernatorial candidates, Jennifer Granholm and Dick DeVos, concluding that while they "contain few overt inaccuracies, the articles may give readers a skewed impression."

Arizona State University's online campus newspaper, the Web Devil followed up last week's article with an editorial describing the editing process at Wikipedia as a "seething pit of contention that is Internet culture... [where] face clawing and name calling [have] been continuously going on since Wikipedia's initial success." Wikipedia is also contrasted with Citizendium.

NPR affiliate KUOW-FM in Seattle, on its October 11, 2006 "Weekday" show, featuring writer and performer John Hodgman (author of the book "The Areas of my Expertise")[2]. Hodgman described Wikipedia as not a place to check facts, but to determine what the controversies were for any given subject. He called it "the place where a million people go to grind their tiny axes.”

Local newspaper reviews Wikipedia

The Parksville Qualicum News article, News travels fast on wiki site reports on Wikipedia's "unparalleled self-correcting qualities ... and its unique ability to be absolutely up to date, [making] a strong argument for its use as the go to reference on a wide range of subjects." Wikipedian User:KenWalker is interviewed.


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2006-10-09

Features and admins

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By Ian Manka

Features and admins

Six users were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: Duja (nom), Merope (nom), Irongargoyle (nom), NCurse (nom), Johan Elisson (nom) and Adambiswanger1 (nom). BanyanTree was re-sysoped without an RfA, per the policy found at the guide to requests for adminship (discussion).

Both Duja and Johan Elisson were promoted by 90 and 64 (respectively) unanimous support votes.

Featured content

Thirteen articles were promoted to featured status last week: Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee (nom), Stephen Trigg (nom), Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (nom), Compact Cassette (nom), Maraba Coffee (nom), Kazi Nazrul Islam (nom), Fauna of Puerto Rico (nom), Ulm Campaign (nom), Enzyme kinetics (nom), Alcibiades (nom), Arctic Tern (nom), Dhaka (nom) and Leonhard Euler (nom).

Six articles were de-featured last week: Go (board game), Domestic AC power plugs and sockets, Joshua A. Norton, Sudoku, and Abraham Lincoln.

One portal reached featured status last week: Portal:Poetry.

No lists were featured last week.

The following featured articles were displayed last week on the Main Page as Today's featured article: Detroit, Lost (TV Series), Dürer's Rhinoceros, The Lord of the Rings, Gas tungsten arc welding, Adi Shankara and Acute myeloid leukemia.

The following featured pictures were displayed last week on the Main Page as picture of the day: Wikipe-tan, Global tropical cyclone tracks, Hacha Grande, Horseracing, Ajanta, European Parliament building and Animated cartoon.

Twelve pictures were featured last week:



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2006-10-09

The Report On Lengthy Litigation

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By David Mestel

For the first time in over five months, the Arbitration Committee neither opened nor closed any cases this week.

Evidence phase

  • Rachel Marsden: A case involving the actions of Arthur Ellis, Rachel Marsden, Bucketsofg and others on the Rachel Marsden page. Marsden and Ellis allege that the page contains inaccurate and libellous material, and that this has been protected on the page by various admins. In response, others allege that Ellis has engaged in edit warring on the page.
  • Vivaldi: A case involving the actions of Vivaldi on Jack Hyles and related articles. Arbustoo alleges that Vivaldi has removed "cited criticism" from the article, as well as harassment, incivility and edit warring. However, an anon IP, 205.157.110.11 accuses Arbustoo of removing comments from AfDs.

Voting phase

  • Giano: A case involving the actions of Giano, Tony Sidaway and others, in which Sidaway blocked Giano for making "inflammatory" comments regarding the behaviour of the ArbCom and the Wikimedia Foundation. The block was subsequently overturned after discussion on WP:AN/I. Remedies have been proposed formalising the relinquishing of sysop access by former clerk Tony Sidaway and former arbitrator Kelly Martin, but thanking her for her "long and honourable service", as well as one banning John Reid for one week, and an unprecedented remedy reminding Jdforrester "to maintain decorum appropriate for an arbitrator". These proposals have the support of between two and five arbitrators.
  • Honda S2000: A case involving the actions of SpinyNorman on List of fastest cars by acceleration. Fred Bauder has proposed remedies placing SpinyNorman on probation, general probation, personal attack and revert parole, as well as limiting him to one account. These proposals have been supported by Dmcdevit.
  • Kosovo: A case involving the actions of editors on Kosovo, particularly the political status of Kosovo. A temporary injunction has been passed allowing any uninvolved administrator to ban any of the named users from the page. Various remedies have been proposed, mostly with the support of three arbitrators, applying various bans, warnings, limits and paroles to a number of users.
  • Ackoz: A case involving the actions and community ban of Ackoz, and his later account, Azmoc. The user previously contributed to Wikipedia under the name Ackoz. He admits to "some trolling" after a three-day block, which led to his ban. However, he has stated that were he unbanned, he would cease his disruptive behaviour, and would be prepared to undergo mentorship. Fred Bauder has introduced remedies to unblock Ackoz and place him on probation for one year, leaving open the possibility for a renewed community ban should Ackoz "revert to his previous pattern of sustained trolling", which have been supported by Dmcdevit and Charles Matthews.
  • Marudubshinki: A case involving the actions of Marudubshinki. Snottygobble, I@n and others allege that Marudubshinki has operated an unauthorised bot, and misused his sysop powers by unblocking himself and allowing his bot to delete pages. A remedy to desysop Marudubshinki has the support of four arbitrators.
  • Ed Poor 2: A case involving Ed Poor. JoshuaZ and Consumed Crustacean have accused Poor of POV pushing and disruption; Poor has not introduced evidence in the case. Ed Poor was party to two prior cases; the first was closed after Poor resigned his status as a bureaucrat, and the second resulted in his desysopping. Fred Bauder has proposed a remedy placing him on probation, a modified version of which has attracted the support of four arbitrators.
  • Pat8722: A case involving the actions of Pat8722. BorgHunter has accused Pat8722 of edit-warring. Pat8722 has requested that the ArbCom stay the case while he pursues 6 pro se cases in the American courts, and has agreed not to edit Wikipedia in the interim. A motion establishing the principle of a "continuance", and a remedy extending this to Pat8722, are supported by two arbitrators, with two abstaining; a separate motion to place Pat8722 on probation has also been raised by Dmcdevit, and supported by Charles Matthews, but opposed by Fred Bauder and SimonP.

Motion to close

  • Deir Yassin massacre: A case involving the actions of KimvdLinde and Guy Montag on Deir Yassin massacre. KimvdLinde alleges that Montag has violated his probation by rewriting the article, unilaterally moving it to "Battle of Deir Yassin", violating copyright and votestacking. In return, Montag refuses "to participate in any of these proceedings", and alleges that KimvdLinde has abused her admin tools by exercising them in a dispute in which she is involved. If closed, Guy Montag would be banned from articles relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, his probation extended for another year, and other users encouraged to enforce Montag's probation.

Upcoming cases

  • GreekWarrior vs. Wikipedia: GreekWarrior, an admitted Greek nationalist extremist, received a community ban for "repeated, blatant ethnic insults and hate speech", but, owing to what Tony Sidaway described as his "great willingness to contribute", has asked that it be lifted or restricted to a finite period. Three arbitrators have voted to accept the case.
2006-10-09

The Report On Lengthy Litigation

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By David Mestel

For the first time in over five months, the Arbitration Committee neither opened nor closed any cases this week.

Evidence phase

  • Rachel Marsden: A case involving the actions of Arthur Ellis, Rachel Marsden, Bucketsofg and others on the Rachel Marsden page. Marsden and Ellis allege that the page contains inaccurate and libellous material, and that this has been protected on the page by various admins. In response, others allege that Ellis has engaged in edit warring on the page.
  • Vivaldi: A case involving the actions of Vivaldi on Jack Hyles and related articles. Arbustoo alleges that Vivaldi has removed "cited criticism" from the article, as well as harassment, incivility and edit warring. However, an anon IP, 205.157.110.11 accuses Arbustoo of removing comments from AfDs.

Voting phase

  • Giano: A case involving the actions of Giano, Tony Sidaway and others, in which Sidaway blocked Giano for making "inflammatory" comments regarding the behaviour of the ArbCom and the Wikimedia Foundation. The block was subsequently overturned after discussion on WP:AN/I. Remedies have been proposed formalising the relinquishing of sysop access by former clerk Tony Sidaway and former arbitrator Kelly Martin, but thanking her for her "long and honourable service", as well as one banning John Reid for one week, and an unprecedented remedy reminding Jdforrester "to maintain decorum appropriate for an arbitrator". These proposals have the support of between two and five arbitrators.
  • Honda S2000: A case involving the actions of SpinyNorman on List of fastest cars by acceleration. Fred Bauder has proposed remedies placing SpinyNorman on probation, general probation, personal attack and revert parole, as well as limiting him to one account. These proposals have been supported by Dmcdevit.
  • Kosovo: A case involving the actions of editors on Kosovo, particularly the political status of Kosovo. A temporary injunction has been passed allowing any uninvolved administrator to ban any of the named users from the page. Various remedies have been proposed, mostly with the support of three arbitrators, applying various bans, warnings, limits and paroles to a number of users.
  • Ackoz: A case involving the actions and community ban of Ackoz, and his later account, Azmoc. The user previously contributed to Wikipedia under the name Ackoz. He admits to "some trolling" after a three-day block, which led to his ban. However, he has stated that were he unbanned, he would cease his disruptive behaviour, and would be prepared to undergo mentorship. Fred Bauder has introduced remedies to unblock Ackoz and place him on probation for one year, leaving open the possibility for a renewed community ban should Ackoz "revert to his previous pattern of sustained trolling", which have been supported by Dmcdevit and Charles Matthews.
  • Marudubshinki: A case involving the actions of Marudubshinki. Snottygobble, I@n and others allege that Marudubshinki has operated an unauthorised bot, and misused his sysop powers by unblocking himself and allowing his bot to delete pages. A remedy to desysop Marudubshinki has the support of four arbitrators.
  • Ed Poor 2: A case involving Ed Poor. JoshuaZ and Consumed Crustacean have accused Poor of POV pushing and disruption; Poor has not introduced evidence in the case. Ed Poor was party to two prior cases; the first was closed after Poor resigned his status as a bureaucrat, and the second resulted in his desysopping. Fred Bauder has proposed a remedy placing him on probation, a modified version of which has attracted the support of four arbitrators.
  • Pat8722: A case involving the actions of Pat8722. BorgHunter has accused Pat8722 of edit-warring. Pat8722 has requested that the ArbCom stay the case while he pursues 6 pro se cases in the American courts, and has agreed not to edit Wikipedia in the interim. A motion establishing the principle of a "continuance", and a remedy extending this to Pat8722, are supported by two arbitrators, with two abstaining; a separate motion to place Pat8722 on probation has also been raised by Dmcdevit, and supported by Charles Matthews, but opposed by Fred Bauder and SimonP.

Motion to close

  • Deir Yassin massacre: A case involving the actions of KimvdLinde and Guy Montag on Deir Yassin massacre. KimvdLinde alleges that Montag has violated his probation by rewriting the article, unilaterally moving it to "Battle of Deir Yassin", violating copyright and votestacking. In return, Montag refuses "to participate in any of these proceedings", and alleges that KimvdLinde has abused her admin tools by exercising them in a dispute in which she is involved. If closed, Guy Montag would be banned from articles relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, his probation extended for another year, and other users encouraged to enforce Montag's probation.

Upcoming cases

  • GreekWarrior vs. Wikipedia: GreekWarrior, an admitted Greek nationalist extremist, received a community ban for "repeated, blatant ethnic insults and hate speech", but, owing to what Tony Sidaway described as his "great willingness to contribute", has asked that it be lifted or restricted to a finite period. Three arbitrators have voted to accept the case.




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