Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-01-22/SPV

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Volume 3, Issue 4 22 January 2007 About the Signpost
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Wikipedia modifies handling of "nofollow" tag WikiWorld comic: "Truthiness"
News and notes: Talk page template, milestones Wikipedia in the News
Features and admins The Report on Lengthy Litigation
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Wikipedia modifies handling of "nofollow" tag

By Michael Snow, 22 January 2007

As an extension of its previous efforts to discourage spam, Wikipedia now has the nofollow tag implemented throughout the site. This came after Jimbo Wales reversed his previous position that the feature should be disabled on Wikipedia itself.

The nofollow tag (the attribute rel="nofollow" added to a hyperlink) serves as an instruction for the search engine's spider as it browses the links on a webpage. Its effect is that the link is not considered when the search engine algorithm ranks sites in order to produce its results. The tag was announced two years ago by the three largest search portals, Google, Yahoo!, and MSN. Originally implemented as a measure to deter spam on blogs, it was also supported by a number of leading blog software producers.

In the MediaWiki software, the tag was added soon after the initial announcement and is part of the default code applied to external links. Since its introduction, it has been enabled for nearly all Wikipedia languages, but for a long time remained disabled for encyclopedia articles on the English Wikipedia. At the outset, there was a lot of discussion about how and where to apply the tag, including two polls on the subject. The developers made clear that it would remain at least on "unattended" wikis that were vulnerable to spam, but Wales expressed the opinion that it should be turned off for the English Wikipedia.

As a result of this discussion, the use of the nofollow tag was suspended on the English Wikipedia. After a patch was added to MediaWiki in 2006, allowing the tag to be enabled selectively by namespace, nofollow was then applied to the English Wikipedia except for actual articles in the encyclopedia.

In confirming the latest change to full use of nofollow, Chief Technical Officer Brion Vibber explained that Wales had requested the switch. He also mentioned reports of edits that were adding external links in hopes of boosting sites competing in a search engine optimization contest.

A similar contest held in 2004 already spilled over into Wikipedia. Offering a prize for the top position in a Google search on the made-up phrase "nigritude ultramarine", it prompted the creation of a Wikipedia article for the term. When an edit war about the contest ensued, the article was ultimately protected for the duration of the competition.

The change has prompted considerable debate, much of which revisits points raised when nofollow was first implemented. Critics pointed out that this deprives many presumably useful sites of the benefits in search engine rankings from having a link on Wikipedia. Supporters argued that using the tag is part of good citizenship in the general effort to combat spam on the internet.

In a different take on the issue, Philipp Lenssen expressed disappointment with the move, arguing that it was actually poor etiquette for Wikipedia because outside links are part of why Wikipedia ranks so well in search engines, so that it now "takes from the communities but doesn’t give back". Lenssen argued in favor of more sophisticated applications of the tag, such as time-sensitive removal for links that remain long enough to have been reviewed for usefulness. Google's Matt Cutts expressed confidence that Wikipedia could develop better methods of handling the issue in the future, but said that in his view this action was "the right call".


WikiWorld comic: "Truthiness"

By Greg Williams, 22 January 2007; Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Truthiness.

WikiWorld is a weekly comic, carried by the Signpost, that highlights a few of the fascinating but little-known articles in the vast Wikipedia archives. The text for each comic is excerpted from one or more existing Wikipedia articles. WikiWorld offers visual interpretations on a wide range of topics: offbeat cultural references and personality profiles, obscure moments in history and - as well as "mainstream" subjects with humorous potential.

Cartoonist Greg Williams developed the WikiWorld project in cooperation with the Wikimedia Foundation, and is releasing the comics under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 license for use on Wikipedia and elsewhere. Williams works as a visual journalist for the US-based The Tampa Tribune, a daily newspaper in Tampa, Florida. He also has worked as an illustrator and designer at newspapers in Dubuque, Iowa, and Dayton, Ohio.
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Image:Truthiness comic.jpg


News and notes

By Ral315, 22 January 2007

New template created to eliminate talk page clutter

Template:ArticleHistory was created this week, and is being "slowly rolled out" onto talk pages that have undergone various article review processes. Raul654, one of the contributors behind the template, said that the template "gives the review history of an article in chronological order, [merging] the functionality of many templates, including: {{FAC}}, {{FAR}}, {{featured}}, {{FACfailed}}, {{Mainpage date to come}}, {{Mainpage date}}, {{Peerreview}}, 'etc. This makes it much easier to keep track of them."

One example that Raul654 cited is that of New York City, which is currently undergoing its sixth featured article candidacy. Before and after links show that most of the templates were easily condensed into the Article History template.

Wikimedia Foundation fundraiser closes

The Wikimedia Foundation fundraiser ended this week. At the end of the drive, over US$1,000,000 had been raised, not including a matching funds donation yet to be received. On January 15, four large donations were contributed anonymously, presumably by the same Polish user:

  • US$10,000
  • €8,000 (US$10,314.40)
  • €7,500 (US$9,669.75)
  • 22,000 złoty (US$7,323.30) ([1])

The four donations were the only major donations made this week, and totaled over US$37,000. After the fundraiser ended, donations leveled off, from $6,336.04 on January 16 to $2,321.78 on January 21.

Briefly


In the news

By Ral315 and Zanimum, 22 January 2007.

Vandalized entries make news

The entry on Marti Pellow, the lead singer for Scottish music group Wet Wet Wet, was briefly the subject of scrutiny after the entry was changed to state that Pellow had died. It stayed in this state for about 4 1/2 hours before being reverted. The Evening Times quoted David Gerard, who apologized for the edits. Other Irish and Scottish news sources carried this article, but the press attention given to this incident was relatively minor.

An entry of John F. Street, the mayor of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania made news this week, when the Philadelphia Inquirer noted that the entry had been vandalized to state that Street had performed as Bozo the Clown. The vandalism was later reverted, nearly 11 hours after it was first vandalized.

Another entry, Millom, was noted by the North-West Evening Mail; the entry had contained various sexual references. The paper noted that a local rugby team had been referred to as the "oldest existing homosexual rugby league team in the world", in addition to other minor inaccuracies, but omitted some of the more vile edits made by the same IP address. The article remained vandalized for over a week before it was reverted.

The Nashville Scene also took a humorous look at a vandalous edit made to Bob Clement, a candidate for Nashville mayor, on January 3 (reverted a week later). The article has since been stubbed, as none of the claims made therein were sourced.

Ottawa Citizen examines editor SimonP

The Ottawa Citizen examined Wikipedia editor and arbitrator Simon Pulsifer. The article went extensively into Pulsifer's personal life, making light of his status as "unemployed and living with his parents" (though the article later notes that he's accepted a full-time job and plans to move into an apartment later this month).

Wikipedia referenced in American sitcom

Wikipedia was referenced in the January 18, 2007 episode of 30 Rock, a sitcom on American television channel NBC. In the episode entitled "The Head and the Hair", comedian Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) realises he has one day left to write his autobiography. He enlists James "Toofer" Spurlock (Keith Powell) and Frank Rossitano (Judah Friedlander) to help him; Friedlander's character finds the article on Tracy Jordan, while using the Internet on his laptop. The article says that he was discovered after doing stand-up comedy at the Apollo Theater in 1984, but Jordan has no memory of this.

This is the first sitcom known to have mentioned Wikipedia; Fox's drama Prison Break showed the site in an October episode.


Features and admins

By Daniel.Bryant, 22 January 2007

Administrators and checkusers

Jpgordon (talk) was granted checkuser rights on January 19, 2007. Jpgordon becomes the first Arbitration Committee member elected at the recent December 2006 elections to be given the user right since assuming their position on January 1, 2007. UninvitedCompany (talk), also appointed at the December 2006 elections, received checkuser on March 23, 2006; UninvitedCompany had previously served the Arbitration Committee for one month in early 2004.

Six users were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: Night Gyr (nom), Isotope23 (nom), TSO1D (nom), FT2 (nom), BradBeattie (nom), and Newyorkbrad (nom). Newyorkbrad's RfA became the third most supported RfA in Wikipedia history, with 225 people supporting.

Featured content

Ten articles were promoted to featured status last week: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film), Metal Gear Solid, Slayer, AC/DC, All Blacks, Charles Edward Magoon, The Cat and the Canary (1927 film), Mary Wollstonecraft, B-17 Flying Fortress, and Flag of Armenia.

Ten articles were also de-featured last week: Cladistics, Octopus card, Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Libertarianism, Diego Velázquez, Tynwald Day, Shakers, Olympic Games, Ryanair, and Convair B-36.

Four lists were promoted to featured status last week: List of inductees of Canada's Walk of Fame, Administrative divisions of Adygea, Canadian federal election results since 1867, and Ontario premiers.

One portal was promoted to featured status last week: European Union

The following featured articles were displayed last week on the Main Page as Today's featured article: Halloween, Sheffield Wednesday F.C., Restoration literature, El Greco, Bacteria, Music of the Lesser Antilles, and Indian Standard Time.

The following featured pictures were displayed last week on the Main Page as picture of the day: Plum, Common Raccoon, Western Gull, Huntsman spider, Pi, House Sparrow, and Snow.

Six pictures were promoted to featured status last week:

Milk thistle flowerhead

Tesseract

Hoverfly

Morteratsch Glacier

Hemispheric, Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències

Striated Pardalote with nesting material



The Report on Lengthy Litigation

By David Mestel, 22 January 2007

The Arbitration Committee opened no cases this week, and closed one case.

Closed case

  • Naming Conventions: A case regarding a dispute over whether articles without alternative meanings should be disambiguated for the sake of clarity - for example, Never Kill a Boy on the First Date (Buffy episode). While about 80% of involved editors said in a straw poll that it should not be disambiguated, both sides allege that editors on the other have behaved disruptively. As a result of the case, the committee declared that "it is the responsibility of the administrators and other responsible parties to close extended policy discussions they are involved in", but did not impose any penalties for violations of consensus, although Izzy Dot was banned for two weeks for sexual harassment.

Evidence phase

  • Piotrus-Ghirla: A case involving the actions of Piotrus and Ghirla on various Russia- and Poland-related articles. Piotrus alleges that Ghirla has added unsourced POV material to these articles, and generally been incivil, while Ghirla claims that Piotrus has engaged in various forms of harassment, and calls for his desysopping. However, the parties have now entered into informal mediation, with proposals including mutual civility parole (and in which Ghirla has dropped his call for desysopping), and as a result of this, a motion has been proposed temporarily deferring the case until the outcome of the mediation is known.
  • Starwood: A case involving links to Starwood Festival-related articles from various pages. Paul Pigman, who brought the case, alleges that Rosencomet "persistently and systematically" added these links, perhaps to an extent that violates WP:SPAM, and that Hanuman Das, Ekajati and 999 have harassed users attempting to remove the links. Mattisse confirms that she has been harassed by Hanuman Das, Ekajati and 999, but that she has no issue of harassment with Rosencomet himself. Hanuman Das has asked that his name be removed from the request, as "I decline to participate", citing that he has not edited the links since he agreed not to on the 5th of December. Although Arbitration is not a consensual process, he also seems to have exercised the right to vanish. 999 and Ekajati deny the allegations, and allege that Mattisse has used multiple sockpuppets to request the links and then call for their removal. In addition, various users allege that Rosencomet has a WP:COI, as the executive director of the for-profit ACE LLC, which promotes the festival.
  • Robert Prechter: A case regarding the behaviour of Rgfolsom and Smallbones on the Socionomics and Robert Prechter pages. Rgfolsom alleges that Smallbones has violated WP:NPOV, WP:CIVIL and WP:DR (by abusing the mediation process), and that he has added "smears, demonstrable falsehoods, and a calculated overemphasis on quotes of critics". In response, Smallbones alleges that Rgfolsom has violated WP:V and WP:NPOV by removing claims critical of Prechter, and adding claims complimentary to him, and WP:COI because he is one of Prechter's employees.

Voting phase

  • Husnock: A case involving the actions of Husnock and Morwen, involving a comment made by Husnock, "I would be careful telling a deployed member of the military they shouldn't edit on Wikipedia for whatever reason.", following disputes on various Star Trek-related AfDs, which Morwen considered to be "intimidating", and Husnock alleges that she stated that she was "in fear of her life", and that he has been investigated by real-world bodies regarding it. Fred Bauder has proposed motions describing Husnock's comments as "regrettable", and others desysopping him as well as cautioning him on various matters, and encouraging Morwen to "be more sensitive to the feelings of others". Most of these proposals have the support of three arbitrators, but FloNight has opposed the remedy relating to Morwen.
  • Sathya Sai Baba 2: Thatcher131 alleges that Andries has repeatedly added a link to an unreliable source to the Robert Priddy article, in violation of a remedy in a prior case on the subject, and that SSS108 has edit warred and exhibited signs of article ownership on the page. Both users deny the allegations. UninvitedCompany has proposed remedies banning Andries from editing the article, or starting any dispute resolution procedures regarding it and requiring Ekantik to edit under one username only. Fred Bauder has supported most of the proposals, but Charles Matthews has opposed the editing restrictions,from which Bauder has abstained.
  • Midnight Syndicate: A case brought by Durova involving an edit war on the Midnight Syndicate article. Dionyseus and Skinny McGee allege that GuardianZ has engaged in sockpuppetry and general disruption on the article. He denies the allegations and argues that Dionyseus and Skinny McGee have engaged in similar behaviour. A temporary injunction has been granted placing Dionyseus, Skinny McGee, and GuardianZ on revert parole. Fred Bauder has proposed remedies, which have the support of five arbitrators, banning GuardianZ and Skinny McGee from the article indefinitely, and Dionyseus for a period of three months, and forbidding any employees of Midnight Syndicate, Nox Arcana or Monolith Graphics from editing the article.
  • Yoshiaki Omura: Various users, principally Crum375, allege that Richardmalter and alleged sockpuppets have added biased, unsourced material to Bi-Digital O-Ring Test, an alternative medicine technique created by Yoshiaki Omura which was criticised by a New Zealand disciplinary tribunal as lacking scientific basis. However, Richardmalter denies that his pro-Omura edits were either biased or unsourced and claims that the mediation process has supported his position. Fred Bauder has proposed motions to the effect that "Richardmalter...[has] edited Yoshiaki Omura in an aggressive biased manner", and banning him from the article indefinitely. These motions have attracted the support of four arbitrators.
  • Derek Smart: A case involving a dispute over the inclusion of critical material in the Derek Smart article. Various editors on both sides of the dispute claim that the other has violated policy in promoting their case, and some suggest that various accounts (Supreme Cmdr and WarHawkSP inter alia) are in fact used by Smart himself, citing as evidence perceived similarities in their writing styles. These editors deny the allegations. Remedies have been proposed prohibiting single-purpose accounts (of which Mael-Num, WarHawk, WarHawkSP, and Supreme_Cmdr are named as examples) from reverting the article, and banning Supreme Cmdr for two weeks, as well as an alternative remedy banning him for one year, and another banning him only from the Smart article. These remedies have the support of three to eight arbitrators.