User talk:Bkonrad/Archive 55

• Op-ed: We must do more to turn readers into editors
  Recently I was having a casual conversation with a friend, and he mentioned that he spent too many hours a day playing video games. I responded with a comment that I, too, spent way too much time on an activity of my own – Wikipedia. In an attempt to reply with a relevant remark, he offered something along the lines of: "So have you ever written anything?" After a second, I quickly answered yes, but I was still in shock over his question. It seemed to be rooted in a belief on his part that using Wikipedia meant just reading the articles, and that editing was something that someone, hypothetically, might do, but not really more likely than randomly counting to 7,744.

• News and notes: Outing of editor causes firestorm
  "WP:OUTING", the normally little-noticed policy corner of the English Wikipedia that governs the release of editors' personal information, has suddenly been brought to wider attention after long-term contributor and featured article writer Cla68 was indefinitely blocked last week. This snowballed into several other blocks, a desysopping by ArbCom, and a request for arbitration.

• Featured content: Slow week for featured content
  Three articles, six lists, and three pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week, including the article on "Laura Secord", who was a Canadian heroine of the War of 1812 best known for warning the British of an impending American attack.

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Television Stations
  This week, we tuned to WikiProject Television Stations, a project that dates back to March 2004. WikiProject Television Stations primarily focuses on local stations, national networks, television markets, and other topics related to television channels in North America, the Caribbean, and some Pacific countries. The project has a fair bit of work ahead of them with over 4,000 unassessed articles and only one Good Article out of 626 assessed articles, giving the project a relative WikiWork rating of 5.262.

• From the editor: Signpost–Wikizine merger
  I am pleased to announce that the Signpost and Wikizine have reached an in-principle agreement that will see Wikizine published as a special Signpost section at the beginning of each month.

• News and notes: Finance committee updates
  During March, three of the Wikimedia Foundation's grantmaking schemes on Meta will reach important crossroads, which will shape how both the editing communities and Wikimedia institutions handle the distribution of donors' money across the movement.

• Featured content: Batman, three birds and a Mercedes
  Twelve articles, five lists, and eight pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week, including an image of the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, a front-engine, 2-seat luxury grand tourer automobile developed by Mercedes-AMG.

• Arbitration report: Doncram case closes; arbitrator resigns
  There are three open cases, and a final decision has been given in the Doncram case.

• WikiProject report: Setting a precedent
  This week, we spent some time with WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court Cases.

• Technology report: Article Feedback reversal
  The WMF has aborted a plan to deploy version 5 of the Article Feedback tool (AFTv5) rolled out to all English Wikipedia articles.

• News and notes: Resigning arbitrator slams Committee
  Just two months into his second term as an arbitrator on the English Wikipedia, Coren resigned from the Committee with a blistering attack on his fellow arbitrators. At the heart of a strongly worded statement, posted both on his talk page and the arbitration notice board, was the claim that ArbCom has become politicised to the extent that "it can no longer do the job it was ostensibly elected for".

• WikiProject report: Making music
  This week, we composed a tribute to WikiProject Composers. The project was created during the final hours of 2004 and finalized in early January 2005. It has grown to encompass over 8,000 pages, including 26 Featured Articles and 23 Good Articles. WikiProject Composers faces a difficult workload, with a relative WikiWork rating of 5.45.

• Interview: Meeting in the middle: Wikipedia and libraries
  Ask librarians what they think about Wikipedia and you might get some interesting answers. Some will throw up their hands about the laziness of the Google generation and their overdependence on Wikipedia. Some see it as the "competition". And some will tell you it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.

• Featured content: Wikipedia stays warm
  Nine articles, seven lists, eleven images, and one topic were promoted to "featured status" this week on the English Wikipedia.

• Arbitration report: Richard case closes
  On Thursday, arbitrator Coren resigned, following closely on the heels of Hersfold's resignation on Wednesday. There are two open cases. A final decision has been given in the Richard case.

• Technology report: Visual Editor "on schedule"
  The WMF's engineering report for January was published this week, giving an overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in that month.

• WikiProject report: The 'Burgh: WikiProject Pittsburgh
  Our travels have brought us to Pittsburgh, the American city known for steelworks and bridges.

• Featured content: One and a half soursops
  Seven articles, one list, six pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.

• Arbitration report: Two open cases
  This case, brought by Mark Arsten, was opened over a dispute over transgenderism topics that began off-wiki. The evidence phase was scheduled to close March 7, 2013, with a proposed decision due to be posted by March 29.

• News and notes: Sue Gardner to leave WMF; German Wikipedians spearhead another effort to close Wikinews
  Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation since December 2007, has announced her plans to leave the position when a successor is recruited. Ranked as one of the most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine, Sue Gardner is widely associated with the rise of the Wikimedia movement as a major custodian of human knowledge and cultural products.

• Technology report: The Visual Editor: Where are we now, and where are we headed?
  Since its inception in May 2011, the Foundation's Visual Editor project has grown to become one of its main focuses. As the project nears its two-year birthday, the Signpost caught up with Visual Editor project manager James Forrester to discuss the progress on the project.

• Recent research: "Ignore all rules" in deletions; anonymity and groupthink; how readers react when shown talk pages
  A paper presented at last month's CSCW Conference observes that "Mass collaboration systems are often characterized as unstructured organizations lacking rule and order", yet Wikipedia has a well developed body of policies to support it as an organization.

• Special report: Who reads which Wikipedia?
  The Wikimedia Foundation has released its latest report card for the movement's hundreds of sites. The WMF has published statistics about the sites since 2009, but only recently have these been expanded in scope and depth to provide a rich source of data for investigating the movement and the world it serves. Dutch-born Erik Zachte is the driver of the WMF's statistical output, and he writes that the report card and accompanying traffic statistics comprise "enough tables, bar charts and plots to keep you busy for a while".

• WikiProject report: Special: FAQs
  This week's Report is dedicated to answering our readers' questions about WikiProjects. The following Frequently Asked Questions came from feedback at the WikiProject Report's talk page, the WikiProject Council's talk page, and from previous lists of FAQs.

• Featured content: What the ?
  The Signpost interviewed prolific featured content creator and former Signpost "featured content" report writer Crisco 1492 about ? and Indonesian cinema. ? was the "Today's featured article" for 1 April 2013. 1 April is popularly known as April Fools' Day in many countries.

• News and notes: Grants given for Wikipedia Library, six others; April Fool's Day ructions
  The first round of individual engagement grants (IEGs) have been awarded, disbursing about $55.6k (€42.7k) to seven applicants.

• Arbitration report: Three open cases
  A case brought by Lecen involves several articles about former Argentinian president Juan Manuel de Rosas (1793–1877).

• Technology report: Wikidata phase 2 deployment timetable in doubt
  Users of ten Wikipedias got access to phase 2 of Wikidata following its first rollout to production wikis.

• Wikizine: WMF scales back feature after outcry
  Numerous Wikimedia Commons editors have chimed in on the Wikimedia Foundation's deployment of a new feature to its mobile website. Allowing anonymous users to register and upload pictures for use in an article, the feature was placed prominently at the top of Wikipedia articles in multiple languages.

• WikiProject report: Earthshattering WikiProject Earthquakes
  This week, we felt the world tremble in the presence of WikiProject Earthquakes. The project was started in May 2008 to deal with articles about earthquakes, aftershocks, seismology, seismologists, plate tectonics, and related articles. While the project has seen success building 14 Featured Articles, one A-class Article, and 21 Good Articles, a fairly heavy workload remains, with a relative WikiWork rating of 4.94. WikiProject Earthquakes maintains a portal, a list of open tasks, a popular pages listing, and an article alerts watchlist.

• News and notes: French intelligence agents threaten Wikimedia volunteer
  Last Friday, the Wikimedia movement awoke to news that one of their number—Rémi Mathis, a French volunteer editor—had been summoned to the offices of the interior intelligence service DCRI and threatened with criminal charges and fines if he did not delete an article on the French Wikipedia about a radio station used by the French military.

• Arbitration report: Subject experts needed for Argentine History
  The arbitration committee is looking for expertise in Argentina and the Spanish language for a case involving former Argentinean president Juan Manuel de Rosas (1793–1877).

• Featured content: Wikipedia loves poetry
  Four articles and two pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.

• Technology report: Testing week
  The deployment of phase 2 of Wikidata to the English Wikipedia, originally scheduled for 8 April but delayed due to technical problems, may be rescheduled again as the result of community resistance.

Dear uploader: The media file you uploaded as:

• File:Jacob Merritt Howard.png

is missing a description and/or other details on its image description page. If possible, please add this information. This will help other editors make better use of the image, and it will be more informative to readers.

If the information is not provided, the image may eventually be proposed for deletion, a situation which is not desirable, and which can easily be avoided.

If you have any questions, please see Help:Image page. Thank you. Theo's Little Bot (error?) 09:46, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

• Op-ed: How do we fix RfA inactivity?
  The RfA process is widely discussed here on the English Wikipedia and it has been well documented that less and less new Requests for adminship are being filed. There are an abundance of bytes devoted to the discussion and analysis of this situation and plenty of hands have been wrung over the matter. Various RfCs have attempted to find a way to fix the problem. Many proposals have been made offering solutions, some more potentially drastic than others, with the goal of making the changes necessary to kick–start RfA back into regular action. However, Wikipedia operates based on consensus and, to this point, there are have simply been too many disagreeing views for us to reach a consensus on how to increase RfA activity.

• WikiProject report: Unity in Diversity: South Africa
  This week, we ventured to WikiProject South Africa. The project was started in February 2005 and is home to thirteen pieces of featured material, two A-class articles, and twenty-one good articles.

• News and notes: Another admin reform attempt flops
  The most recent move to reform the requests for adminship process on the English Wikipedia has failed, after a complex and drawn-out three-step procedure for community input was subject to decreasing participation as time wore on and came up with no clear consensus.

• Featured content: The featured process swings into high gear
  Four articles, twelve lists, and seven pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.

• In the media: Wikipedia inaccurate, says Florence; New Wikipedia app for breaking news
  An article by John Sweeney published on 22 April 2013 on scnow.com, the website of the Florence, South Carolina Morning News, reported that Florence city officials have taken to monitoring and correcting the Wikipedia article on their city.

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Editor Retention
  This week, we spent some time with a project that develops tools and methods for improving the user experience in the hope that new users will continue editing the encyclopedia. The project was started in July 2012 and has grown to include 124 members. The project's members partner with the Teahouse and the Welcoming Committee to spread WikiLove, welcome new users, encourage civility, and other related activities.

• News and notes: Milan conference a mixed bag
  The Wikimedia Conference is an annual meeting of the chapters to discuss their status and the organisational development of the Wikimedia movement. For the first time it included groups that wish to be considered for WMF affiliation as thematic organisations and one of the three groups that was recently affiliated as a user group. The conference was also attended by members of the Wikimedia Foundation's (WMF) Board of Trustees, the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC), the WMF Affiliations Committee, and a representative of the Wikivoyage Association.

• Featured content: Batfish in the Red Sea
  Nine articles, four lists, eight pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" status this week on the English Wikipedia.

• Arbitration report: Sexology case nears closure after stalling over topic ban
  The Sexology case is nearing completion after arbitrators were unable to agree on a topic ban for one of the participants.

• Technology report: A flurry of deployments
  On Monday, the English Wikipedia became the 12th wiki to be able to pull data from the central Wikidata.org repository, with other wikis scheduled to receive the update on Wednesday.