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Mark Cuban edits his own article

On his blog NBA owner, entrepreneur, and wild and crazy guy Mark Cuban has admitted editing his own Wikipedia article. He wrote under the user name Mcuban. Some of Cuban's edits were relatively uncontroversial, but he also excised a lot of criticism of his actions as owner of the Dallas Mavericks. (Another editor has since restored the criticism.) And he apparently believes that Mantanmoreland, who has also edited Mark Cuban, is Gary Weiss, a journalist critical of some of Cuban's business activities. On his blog a disgruntled user warned Cuban that admin Slim Virgin would defend Mantanmoreland's critical edits. Meanwhile, admin JoshuaZ has left a reminder of WP:AUTO on Cuban's talk page. Another editor left a message on the page imploring Cuban to "rescue" the Pittsburgh Pirates.

It's an interesting story that could develop further, especially if more criticism of Cuban appears in the article. Casey Abell 12:29, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

UPDATE: This really is getting interesting. Mark Cuban has seen lots of activity today, with Mantanmoreland reverting edits that he says were made by Cuban's meatpuppets. There have been no more edits by Mcuban himself, but the article could become a real battleground over Cuban's activities on sharesleuth.com. Cuban has said that he will take positions (in particular, short sell) companies that he discusses on the website before those discussions are published. This has been bashed as unethical, and is the subject of less than flattering comments in the Wikipedia article. Stay tuned. Casey Abell 17:31, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

ANOTHER UPDATE: Cuban has edited the talk page of his article and sounds conciliatory in his comments about other editors' additions. He even says that he has enjoyed learning some of the ins and outs of Wikipedia policies and etiquette. He does seem pretty certain of his identification of Mantanmoreland as Gary Weiss, though. Casey Abell 03:54, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Cuban's attention to his own article (and his remarks on his blog about the article's supposed inaccuracies) have prompted other editors to splatter the article with ever more footnotes. Right now Mark Cuban boasts no fewer than 63 footnotes for only about 2,300 words of prose. In case you're counting, that's one footnote every 36 words. Even by doctoral dissertation standards, this is Footnotemania.

The contentious paragraph about ShareSleuth.com has been excruciatingly balanced and footnoted. The four-sentence paragraph gets five footnotes, with one sentence getting three. It's either referencing gone bonkers or super-scholarly accuracy, depending on your personal tolerance for footnotes. Casey Abell 12:45, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Blackboard E-Learning patent

The Wikipedia is in the news over a collaborative effort to record examples of prior art on the History of virtual learning environments page, because of an E-learning patent issued to Blackboard Inc.. see:

BlankVerse 07:08, 28 August 2006 (UTC) Insert non-formatted text here

More paid editing on the Wikipedia

See:

"...public relations firm Kellen Communications is reacting by posting and editing Wikipedia-compliant articles about its clients on Wikipedia and monitoring the Web site regularly to ensure that those clients are accurately portrayed."

Some of the company's websites are http://kellencompany.com/, http://www.kelleninteractive.com/ and http://kellenpr.com/. Soneone might want to check their client lists [1]. With a relatively quick check, I found an Atlanta Comcast IP adding some of their clients to external links sections in articles (71.204.14.32 (talk · contribs) on 16 August 2006). The IP was warned for spamming. One of their other services is SEO.

When do I get hired for my Wikipedia editing expertise? ;-) BlankVerse 11:23, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

They seem to have removed the release from their site. -- Zanimum 17:33, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Darn! I should have made a copy of the press release, instead of just copying a small segment of it. Unfortunately, from a quick check using a couple of news search engines, it doesn't look like they released the press release through any of the major press release services. Most of the rest of the press release, from what I can recall, was a warning that business need to be prepared for a Wiki world, and the dangers of misinformation on the Wikipedia. BlankVerse 06:37, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Like the misinformation they likely would have tried to spread? -- Zanimum 19:32, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Lake Express ferry

The editing of the Lake Express and S.S. Badger articles has been in the news, and even slashdotted by CmdrTaco. See:

BlankVerse 06:32, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Republican candidate to sue Wikipedia ?

Chuck Morse, a Republican candidate is contemplating sueing Wikipedia for damaging his reputation.

See: http://www.thetranscript.com/localnews/ci_4260986 Kpjas 05:50, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

More in blog entries: [4] [5] Kpjas 05:56, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
If/when he actually files a suit, it's news - until then, it's political self-promotion. Non-notable. JesseW, the juggling janitor 06:36, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Another (petty?) example of Wikipedia POV dispute

Panama Canal PR Shills Take Yes Campaign Online, Hijack Wikipedia [6]

FoxTrot

Wikipedia's Thomas Edison article was the subject of today's (2006-09-07) Foxtrot cartoon strip. – Chacor 12:36, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

At least this one didn't encourage vandalizing Thomas Edison... Ral315 (talk) 16:32, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Link to comic strip: here. If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka Talk to me! 17:28, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Clarin & the Spanish Wikipedia

There has been a strange case invloving the article es:Noche de los lápices and the Argentinian newspaper Clarín (newspaper) (http://www.clarin.com/)

The 14th September an anonimous change was made in the article es:Noche de los lápices, the vandal changed the story about seven students that dissapeared during the militar dictatorship in Argentina so that it looked as if the whole story was a lie, an invention from some terrorist organisations.

Two hours later the online newssite of the newspaper Diario Clarin (Clarín (newspaper); considered the third online newspaper in Spanish language) published that «En Wikipedia, la Noche de los Lápices apareció como "un invento creado por organizaciones terroristas» "In Wikipedia, the Noche de los Lápices appeared as an invention. created by terrorist organisations" ([7] the article has been changed and toned down since) . The news piece was on the front page of the web page for several hours.

The vandalism was eliminated almost inmediately after the news appeared in Clarin. You can see the time line in es:Wikipedia:Café#Noche de los Lápices Argentina:

http://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Noche_de_los_l%C3%A1pices&direction=prev&oldid=4711637

10:18 (act) (prev) 15:18(CEST) 14 sep 2006 24.232.220.225 (Discusión)

Vandalismo http://www.clarin.com/diario/2006/09/14/um/m-01271295.htm

11:51 (Argentnian time) | En recuerdo de La Noche de los Lápices, quieren declarar al 16 de setiembre Día de la juventud

http://www.clarin.com/diario/2006/09/14/um/m-01271296.htm

19:48 (Argentnian time) | En Wikipedia, la Noche de los Lápices apareció como "un invento creado por organizaciones terroristas"

(Esta nota fue modificada por eso la hora no es la hora original, pero no es difícil deducirla./ The note has been changed so that the time stamp is not the original one)

http://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Noche_de_los_l%C3%A1pices&direction=next&oldid=4711637

12:15 (act) (prev) 17:15(CEST) 14 sep 2006 Dajuliani (Discusión | contribuciones) (Revirtiendo cambios/Reverting changes)

Cambios revertidos

Funnily enough, Clarin is an Internet provider and the ISP vandalizing the article belongs to Clarin. The whole story is in [8] (only in Spanish) the weblog of es:usuario:Dodo. es:usuario:Ecemaml comments in the weblog that in those two hours, Clarin saw the vandalism and made a screenshot (and an article!) of the vandalized page to ilustrate the article as there was no diff link to the next change (you can see the image in [9]). Another funny fact is that Clarin publishes its own enciclopedia [10] using Wikipedia as source [11], in spite of being quite hostile [12].

Of course the news have spread: [13], Página/12 ([14], newspaper form the Clarin Group), [15],

Not so funny are declarations Clarin published later: Sola, the Governor of Buenos Aires, said he was worried about the fact and the ombudman of Buenos Aires said she was preparing a lawsuit against wikipedia ([16]): "Repudiamos el contenido de esa nota y estamos prepando una presentación formal contra la enciclopedia por la falta de control sobre los contenidos en un instrumento tan vulnerable como Internet al que acceden millones de jóvenes estudiantes" ("We reject the content of that note and we are preparing a lawsuit against the enciclopedia because of lack of control about the content in such a vulnerable instrument as is Internet, that millions of young students access").

So, there are now stong suspicions on the Spanish Wikipedia community that this is a case of a reporter "creating" the news he writes about, but of course, nothing can be proven :) I hope you can make a small note on the Signpost with this material.

Cheers, --Ecelan 08:01, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

US Patent Office and Wikipedia

I'd be willing to write an article on the US Patent Office and Wikipedia per the Business Week story described here. Let me know on my talk page or (better still) through "e-mail user" if there's interest. PedanticallySpeaking 15:11, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if there's enough for a story. Business Week and a couple blogs have reported this, but I can't find official confirmation from the U.S. Patent Office. I consulted with a patent attorney and he too was unable to find any sort of official ruling on this issue. Since I can't verify this report, I'm withdrawing my suggestion for this idea. PedanticallySpeaking 13:55, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Sergey Brin discusses Wikipedia

One of the new Berkeley videos has Sergey Brin compliments Wikipedia in the beginning of this lecture. He compares Wikipedia to first search engines: "There are things... out there that are very simple and you never think would work." [17] I'm going to add it to his article. - RoyBoy 800 19:20, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

This would be a good one. · XP · 19:21, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Oops, already at his article (older video), so Signpost probably already mentioned it. But could be worth mentioning again. - RoyBoy 800 19:32, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, this is really old news. - Hahnchen 03:27, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Media coverage

Media coverage on Bengali Wikipedia milestone:

"Bengali Wikipedia crosses 10,000 articles By Frederick Noronha" Sep 30, 2006, 12:10 GMT

At http://tech.monstersandcritics.com/news/article_1206718.php/Bengali_Wikipedia_crosses_10000_articles

The news was also syndicated by AP http://www.tech2.com/india/news/internet/bengali-wikipedia-crosses-10000-articles/2068/0


Thanks

--Ragib 06:26, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Singapore's Straits Times covers Singapore-related articles

Singapore's Straits Times today covered Singapore-related articles in their weekly Digital Life section. Among others, they included mentions about Singapore, Help:Contents, Kumar (drag queen), Elizabeth Choy, Jacintha Abisheganaden, Nick Leeson, Bugis Street, Little India, Singapore and Mustafa Centre, Merlion, Hawker centre, Zouk (club), Sarong Party Girl, Kiasu, Singlish, Haze (in relation to the 2006 Southeast Asian haze), 4-Digits, Huang Na, Creative Technology, Land Transport Authority, Electronic Road Pricing, Housing and Development Board, as well as mentions about the vandalism on George W. Bush (examples they gave include "He is the 43rd and current idiot" as well as "George Warhawk Bush"). They also interviewed User:Sengkang, and someone else whose username isn't listed.

They did, however, erroneously say that anyone could create articles anonymously, something which is not currently allowed on enwp.

– Chacor 13:23, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Your real name is Chacor? :]
They presumably mean that 'user ids' are anonymous in not revealing your actual name, as opposed to the 'anon IP' meaning of the term which is used locally. --CBD 17:24, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, they also mentioned registering a username, in the same piece. So your interpretation is possible, although I think they meant as an IP. – Chacor 13:43, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia appears in Cisco Systems commercial

This is minor, but in a current Cisco Systems commercial a Wikipedia page can be seen twice on the monitor of a laptop. --Durin 13:51, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

YouTube? __earth (Talk) 13:55, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
I'd argue this isn't minor at all. What's the plot? -- Zanimum 19:22, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I've been trying to find an online version of the ad without success. The Cisco site itself does not seem to have it. The basic premise of the ad (if I remember correctly) is being able to do anything digitial anywhere. At two points, a Wikipedia page appears on a laptop as part of the commercial. The view of the page isn't clear enough to see what the page is, but you can see the logo well enough. The background music of the ad is an instrumental section of Baba O'Riley by The Who. I can't be more specific about details; I saw the ad just once. --Durin 19:43, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Confirming that I also noted the appearance of a Wikipedia article on a laptop flashed on screen in use by a child (I think it was a child) during a Cisco commercial airing at 9:30 PM (Eastern Standard Time) 20 October 2006 on the SciFi Channel (during a new episode of Battlestar Galactica). I only saw one reference in this commercial. I don't recall the theme of the commercial, unfortunately (i.e. innovation, exploration, education, etc.). --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 13:21, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Real Quick between a class and then meetings..... Last night on telivision there is a Cisco Systems add and among the technology users is a young girl on Wikipedia's main page. Very Very Very cool !!!

I attempted a search to see if an article was done on this, did not find so thought would put it here and see where we can go

so sorry kinda new - same as above but forgot Dharp66 18:37, 18 October 2006 (UTC)Dharp

  • I already mentioned it above, but thanks for confirming I'm not seeing things :) --Durin 12:56, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

WikiMiniAtlas

This might look like a pretty shameless plug, but I'd like to generate a little publicity for my Wikipedia Javascript-plugin WikiMiniAtlas. It uses coordinate information from geocoded articles to create a draggable and zoomable little popup map of the world with clickable links to all other geocoded articles. A recent update includes a satellite mode and zoomlevels down to <100m resolution. The plugin is used by quite a lot of users on de.WP, as it appeared in the german signpost (I didn't even had to push it myself ;-) ), but the userbase on en.WP is still a bit disappointing. --Dschwen 13:40, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

  • WikiMiniAtlas showing the South Island of New Zealand
    WikiMiniAtlas showing the South Island of New Zealand
  • Pyramids of Gizeh in satellite mode
    Pyramids of Gizeh in satellite mode

An article from FCW Media Group [18] Stratcom takes a page from Wikipedia reports about successful adoption of wiki technology in military setting ...the Strategic Command’s 24-hour operations and intelligence meeting place. Using a Wikipedia-style approach, the program eliminates the chain of information and lets warfighters collaborate, regardless of their rank or position. Kpjas 08:16, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Cites and Insights on Wikipedia

Lenghty writeup at What About Wikipedia? Samw 20:16, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Interesting traffic analysis

This post by LeeAnn Prescott at HitWise discusses school-year based traffic cycles on Wikipedia, with big traffic boosts coming at finals, and big dips during vacation. Also, the downstream traffic suggests that use patterns shift from research to less academic purposes when school is out, according to Prescott.--ragesoss 07:30, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Depth

Maybe this could make a little blurb in the next issue: Mutante's a set of multilingual statistics scripts, some of which are used on Meta (m:List of Wikipedias, for example), has added a new way to gauge the relative quality of a Wikipedia language edition: depth. It's calculated as:

For Wikipedias with less than 1,000 articles, a depth of more than 200 isn't counted. If you'd like something more mathematical-looking (and thus more impressive):

But really, it's just a small way of deemphasizing the article count as an indicator of a Wikipedia edition's progress.

 – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 08:36, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikimania 2007bulletin: 2006-12-4

Just a note that the latest Wikimania 2007 team bulletin has been released, and may include some points worth covering. Daveydweeb (chat/review!) 01:14, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Google Earth layer

Has this been covered yet? I've been talking with Greg Maxwell via email, and he's explained a lot of FAQ that hasn't been discussed so far elsewhere. I'd be willing to forward the email to any of the 'post's writers. -- Zanimum 20:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe this was covered here under Other news. let me know if you are referring to something else. --Trödel 22:02, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, that's it. I though I remembered something being in. If I were to do a small, say 300 word article on how it works, would that be welcomed? What coordinate templates work and which don't, why some markers are out of place (our fault, it seems!), how it gets updated and at what rate, that sort of thing? -- Zanimum 22:10, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I suggest proposing it to the editor (User:Ral315) first here (next week's issue working page) --Trödel 22:36, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, forgot that list existed. -- Zanimum 22:39, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Yeah; go ahead. Ral315 (talk) 04:38, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

To update, I'm attempting to have this done for the end of the week, for the next issue. -- Zanimum 20:01, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Sidebar

It looks like the sidebar has finally changed (at least in monobook). May be worth covering. – Chacor 09:56, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

It has? Is there a before and after picture? It does look different, but I can't remember what it looked like before... Ah! Found the link: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Sidebar_redesign. It looks like they changed the top two boxes (with minor differences), but left the bottom box (the toolbox) unchanged. I seem to recall that some people said something about technical difficulties in doing changes to the toolbox. Anyway, I'm copying this thread over to the talk page of the redesign page that I linked to above. Carcharoth 10:49, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Changed back, it looks like. – Chacor 07:43, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia 6th most searched site on google

'wikipedia' was number 6 and 'wiki' was number 10: google BBC --Ehouk1 20:49, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

UK Indymedia accuses Wikipedia of lying

A recent Village Pump (miscellaneous) addition permalink refers to this external item: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/12/358569.html. For your consideration. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 14:09, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Ottawa Sun quotes us as if we were a news bureau

"By AP AND WIKIPEDIA". -- Zanimum 14:55, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, Wikinews ain't gonna be happy about that. ;) Titoxd(?!?) 21:23, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
It says you have to pay $10.00 (I guess Canadian) to access the article. GFDL?!! 67.117.130.181 10:44, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia in China still ranks high

According to Andrew Lih's blogs, the Chinese government department involved in running the "Great Firewall" is involved in releasing a list of the most popular sites in China. Wikipedia ranks highly... -- Zanimum 15:04, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

An online debate: What's the meaning of Zanta?: He may be local, but fans say he belongs in Wikipedia

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20061223.ZANTA23/TPStory/TPEntertainment/Ontario/

-- Zanimum 14:41, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Centiare trying a semantic wiki

I think it would be of interest to readers to read this blog review that compares a new semantic wiki (Centiare) to the Yellow Pages, Wikipedia, Hoover's, and MySpace! --JossBuckle Swami 06:31, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't seem that different from AboutUs, Qweki, and Richdex. And I don't see anything semantic about it. --Pmsyyz 20:04, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Centiare appears to be different in that the first creator of a Directory space article actually "controls" or "owns" that article (i.e., other editors are locked out of it). So, Wal-Mart's page about Wal-Mart would say what Wal-Mart wants it to say, regardless of what the community thinks it should say. Community would be welcome to edit the Wal-Mart Talk page, I presume. As far as Centiare (not?) being semantic, scroll to the bottom of this Portal page and play around with that sortable list of entities that have tagged their primary NAICS code. Each column is sortable. I don't think you can do anything close to that on Wikipedia, AboutUs, Qweki (a link farm, not a content hub), or Richdex (which isn't even working properly). I don't know... Centiare looks pretty damn different to me. --MuscleJaw SobSki 02:21, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Since most companies already have a website that can be found with a search engine, Centiare doesn't seem that revolutionary. The sortable tables is just a bit of JavaScript. It can be done on Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-11-20/Technology_report. --Pmsyyz 13:50, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Pmsyyz, I'm sorry to take issue with what you're saying, but I don't think you have a full understanding of how Search Engine Optimization works. Just because an organization's website "can" be found with a text-based search engine, doesn't mean much. That's because 95% of search engine users fail to click anywhere lower than the 3rd or 4th search result on 95% of their searches. Centiare has scripted a very informative SEO discussion about how their directory could help any organization that currently fails to come up toward the top of both general and specific Google searches. They've already proven it, and they're running more tests to prove it further. And that's why it is revolutionary. --JossBuckle Swami 15:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipe-tan in the Tabliods...

File:Wikipe-tan HongKong01.jpg
Wikipe-tan cosplay.

Don't quite know if it's newsworthy, but... WP:TAN: "Two Wikipe-tan cosplayers have been spotted in a cosplay activity in the University of Hong Kong. One of them, Heung Ying Ching(向映晴), was interviewed by Hong Kong magazine Easy Finder weeks later. [19][20] In that article, more images of Wikipe-tan were used to illustrate how Heung became an "international icon". As an aside, the article erroneously told how she was invited by Kasuga and Norwegian "administrator" GunnarRene to become the real-life Wikipe-tan. Apple Daily went further on that error, saying Heung became a representative for Wikipedia. [21]" --Kunzite 09:22, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

That's hilarious and amazing. -- Zanimum 14:08, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Unified login

It would be interesting if you could post an update about the status of unified login. I can't find any current information online, so you would probably have to ask Brion Vibber directly. Thue | talk 10:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

The short answer is, don't ask brion about it, or he'll smack you :) As far as I know, it's been tested and seemed to work with some degree of success. I think that after the fundraiser's done, we'll start hearing more about it. Then again, I would have thought the same thing about stable revisioning, too :) I'll check with brion later this week. Ral315 (talk) 13:30, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

"Wikipedia links used to build smart reading lists"

From [22]: "Software that generates a list of reading material tailored to a person's individual interests has been developed by a PhD student in the US." Mike Peel 19:55, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's confidential... some of the Communications Committee have contacted this student, asking whether it will be made publicly available, and whether we can help him in any way. -- Zanimum 14:05, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

From the "It's a small world file":

Image:Hawk eye.jpg, from flikr, was being used in the eye article, where it was seen by Professor Russell D. Fernald of Stanford University, who then used the image in the article Casting a Genetic Light on the Evolution of Eyes in the academic journal Science. The graphic that it became part of can be seen on the Science website or on the flikr website. [23] BlankVerse 11:41, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Ironically, to view the larger image you need to log in to the website, which requires some sort of (paid) subscription. Compare and contrast with the image on Wikipedia. Mike Peel 17:55, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Week proposal

Probably not even close to being of sufficient quality for inclusion, but thought that maybe this page (or some better phrased form of it) could possibly be included in the upcoming issue. Please inform me of whatever revisions are required for it to be included, if you deem it worthy of inclusion at all. Thank you. Badbilltucker 20:50, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Used for Artificial Intelligence

article, slashdot. cheers. JoeSmack Talk 08:10, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

paper

A day in the life of Wikipedia

Most editors have no idea of the complexity of Wikipedia or the extent of activity in the project on any given day. If there was some interest, I'd be happy to help with writing an article about a "day in the life" of this project. Such an article might begin by noting that at 00:01 there is a changing of the article on the Main Page (by a bot, I think).

The article could include things like this (all figures are names are for illustration only):

  • 06:10 - the 1000th new article of the day, Title of 1000th article, is added by User:Whoever the user was. By the end of the day, a total of 4,221 new articles will have been added to Wikipedia, 3995 by registered users and 226 by anononymous IPs, the latter through the moderated article creation process.
  • 08:18 - User:Name of Candidate is nominated for an adminship by User:Name of person nominating. By the end of the day, 43 people have expressed their opinions on the nomination. The tally is 27/12/4; if the trend continues, it will probably result in an unsuccessful candidacy. There are five other RfAs in progress, with four likely to result in the appointment of new administrators by the end of the seven-day period that RfAs remain open.
  • 10:22 - WP:AIV receives it's 200th notification of vandal activity. By the end of the day, that noticeboard will have received and processed 590 notifications, blocked 357 accounts (XX%) completely as vandal-only, and issued temporary blocks on 195 other accounts (XX%) that range from one hour to one month.

By "help with writing", I mean identifying sources of information (they're scattered, not surprisingly) and coming up with a list of things happening around Wikipedia that might be included in the article. (I've come across a lot of things while compiling an editor's index in the past two months that I think other editors would find interesting.) John Broughton | Talk 18:58, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the main page is updated by ParserFunctions; it changes over automatically at the start of a day. One good place to gather such statistics will be the logs. --ais523 15:12, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

wikipedia's alexa rankings hit 9th

according to alexa, wikipedia hit 9th website on the internet on January 3rd (and again on January 7th) of 2007. im pretty sure that this is the highest wikipedia has gotten ever on the rankings, 10th being its previous best. JoeSmack Talk 03:53, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

iPhone release features Wikipedia screenshot

Apple's iPhone video on its website features an iPhone bookmarked for Wikipedia, and a screenshot of the iPod article. Very cool. - Nunh-huh 19:47, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

New and improved POTD system

We over at Wikipedia:Picture of the day are pleased to announce the implementation of a new POTD system. Previously, only two formats were available to users who wanted to have the POTD on their user pages: {{Pic of the day}} and {{POTD}}. However, many were unhappy with this because those formats didn't fit into their user page designs. As of January 1, 2007, it is possible to customize the POTD display to only have the image (at any size), the blurb, the credit, the article that the picture comes from, or any combination thereof. Complete instructions may be found at Wikipedia:Picture of the day. howcheng {chat} 20:17, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Rise of the bots

A special article on the history of bots on Wikipedia could be quite interesting. Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/ProtectionBot will not conclude for several more days, but it could possibly be the first successful RfA for a bot. Additionally, several bots such as User:HBC AIV helperbot and User:HagermanBot have taken up tasks that have always been done manually until now. I aslo found User:Tawker's comment about initial opposition to AntiVandalBot interesting in light of its current praise from countless users. Just a thought. Dar-Ape 00:00, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't forget Jmaxbot and Dragonflybot. Raul654 00:05, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
PS - I'd be thrilled if someone could automate the daily featured article. Raul654 00:06, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
And Shadowbot2 as well... can we have a bot that programs other bots? ;) Titoxd(?!?) 01:03, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure... Bots don't always get along-- they've already started reverting each other's edits. :-) Dar-Ape 01:42, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
BATTLE BOTS!!! Raul654 01:58, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Haha! Dar-Ape 18:16, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Not just that; you might want to check the history of User talk:Mathbot. --ais523 14:27, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
By the way, ProtectionBot's RfA was withdrawn after developer intervention to make it unneccesary. --ais523 14:27, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I see lots of referencs to Curpsbot as well. What was that? Wasn't there a bot that added lots of small towns from some big database dump? Carcharoth 01:53, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Rambot was the bot that added the census articles. Curpsbot was a bot runs by Curps that used his admin powers to do bad things to bad people. Raul654 01:56, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Registered bots is helpful. See the entry on Curps's bot under "Bots running with administrator rights". It was created originally to stop Willy on Wheels style rapid fire pagemove vandalism (and good thing too, because it was deployed just after Willy appeared to fully automate his attack with a vandal bot). Dragons flight 10:09, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia bots might help. Anyone see any really interesting bots there? Or technically amazing or indispensable bots? Carcharoth 03:55, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

There are just under 400 bots in that category. Wikipedia:Types of bots and Wikipedia:History of Wikipedia bots are also interesting. Carcharoth 03:57, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Hmm. Not very comprehensive though. I'm going to drop the links off over at WP:BAG and see if someone over there wants to update the pages. Carcharoth 04:02, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Filling in the blanks in the Globe and Mail

A review of a book critical of Said's Orientalism: Carl Senna, "Dis-Oriented," Globe and Mail. 7 January 2007. "Dis-Oriented"

  • "Gaps in Edward Said's personal details once left him open to criticism that he had embellished his family's origins as Palestinian refugees. Yet according to Wikipedia, he was born in Jerusalem in 1935: 'His father was a wealthy Christian Palestinian businessman and an American citizen, while his mother was born in Nazareth of Christian Lebanese and Palestinian descent.'" Bobanny 06:29, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

The world's most colorful boxer

There's an interesting use of wikipedia as a source on the last page of this court decision by Judge Posner.[24] Eluchil404 09:03, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

url doesn't work, got a case cite? 67.117.130.181 11:20, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
URL is down now, but it worked for me earlier. A screenshot: [25] – Chacor 11:51, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Physics World

This month's issue of Physics World (the magazine of the Institute of Physics) is a web special, with one of the articles dicussing Wikipedia [26] (free for the moment, might not stay that way). The dead tree version has a couple more statistics and tidbits: In a survey of 2695 physicists by IoP Publishing, 75% of respondents said they used Wikipedia for information about physics, and 5% said they contributed regularly. 14% have contributed to a work related wiki. Oldelpaso 15:25, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

The online version mentions "60 respondents to our survey". If that's all the response they got from sending a survey to 2695 physicists, then obviously some caution is in order. John Broughton | ♫♫ 18:16, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikileaks

From CBC[27]: "A new website that will use Wikipedia's open-editing format is hoping to become a place where whistleblowers can post documents without fear of being traced." The group's website is at http://www.wikileaks.org/. theProject 19:53, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Also on Slashdot. Wow, talk about attempt of riding on Wikipedia's popularity and achieving 100% buzzword compliance. Interesting, if it will ever fly anyway =) --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 22:09, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Main page moves

Another discussion is under way at Talk:Main Page#Requested Move on moving the Main Page. This time there is a clear alternative to move to, and is avoiding having votes. It seems the issue may not die down for a while. --Midnighttonight (rendezvous) 02:17, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

SearchMe and WikiSeek

Searchme launched WikiSeek — "a better way to search Wikipedia". Gzkn 01:04, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

They state that "The majority of the revenue generated by Wikiseek advertising

is donated to the Wikimedia Foundation." Gzkn 02:34, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Also relevant, Searchme has no association whatsoever with Wikia, other than they bought ad space from Wikia. -- Zanimum 14:58, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Simon Pulsifer in Ottawa Citizen

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/technology/story.html?id=5016ff66-143d-43cc-98b9-140cc8259c19

The most introspective into his personal life that I've ever seen. -- Zanimum 14:57, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Diacritics Schism on English Wikipedia

I don't know if this is the correct place to post (the subject). There's been an ongoing Diacritics dispute on English Wikipedia's NHL Euro players article titles. There seems to be no solution forthcoming. Could this be considered as a 'news story' for the Signpost? GoodDay 19:35, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Normally, this would not be the place to handle that, no. Ral315 (talk) 18:10, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

What is the ideal reading level?

Interesting blog post posing the question of what reading level wikipedia should be at. The Wikipedia dilemma: What is the ideal reading level? - Ravedave (Adopt a State) 17:59, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I can see many problems with this, with regards to censoring Wikipedia. For example, on Bill Clinton, do we leave out Bill's affair on the 4th grade version? Is it even important enough to tell a 4th grader? It's a tough question. And obviously sexual articles would be an issue... Ral315 (talk) 18:09, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I think its an interesting post, but I personally like letting the 'free market' decide where the reading level and content ends up at. That and the fact that simple.wikipedia.org exists... Perhaps we need a childrens.wikipedia.org or school.wikipedia.org that is censored. I hate to see branching though, it causes nothing but problems. There are more interesting comments at digg (where I found it) than on the site itself digg thread -Ravedave (Adopt a State) 20:28, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
there were a lot of interesting comments, but most of the digg users got it wrong. They thought the author was calling for a 'dumbing down' of wikipedia, when in fact he was calling for additional material. Censoring will provide a challenge, as will branching, but when all is said and done, if articles become accessible to more people, I have to think it's a positive thing. Firemeboy 02:51, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Nofollow on en:Wikipedia

At Jimbo Wales' directive, all external links within the English language Wikipedia are now coded "nofollow" -- this should help reduce spamming once word gets out in the SEO community.

This change was mentioned in the discussion Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Globalwarming awareness2007/SEO world championship -- expect a spam onslaught.

You can check this out for yourself by having your browser display the source code (typically a menu bar command such as "View source code", "Source", or "Page source"); here's an example from the Bacteria article:

  • "<a href="http://aem.asm.org/cgi/content/full/70/7/4230?view=long&pmid=15240306" class="external text" title="http://aem.asm.org/cgi/content/full/70/7/4230?view=long&pmid=15240306" rel="nofollow">Geomicrobiology of high-level nuclear waste-contaminated vadose sediments at the hanford site, Washington state</a>"

The MediaWiki software does this automatically when converting wiki-code to html to send to browsers.

It would help to get this word disseminated throughout the Internet community as quickly as possible.

We can still expect a drumbeat of spam, but this should reduce the most complex, sneaky spam campaigns done "black hats" within the broader community of search engine optimization professionals. It should be noted that "white hat" professionals have been among the most vocal advocates of Wikipedia making this change. --A. B. (talk) 16:23, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

It may be worth asking an expert in search engine optimization if this will impact the ranking of Wikipedia articles by Google (and perhaps other search engines). My understanding (quite possibly wrong) is that one of the major factors that Google uses to assess the quality (and hence rank) of webpages is whether they link to other quality pages. With "nofollow" tags, the links in articles may be treated as non-links by the Google search algorithm; if so, there might be a sharp drop in rankings. -- John Broughton | (♫♫) 01:53, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
We have a relationship with Google where we feed article changes to Google to save them time on caching; I would assume that Google might adjust their results appropriately. I could be wrong, though. Ral315 (talk) 21:56, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
The more important issues that the Signpost should (but will probably fail to) uncover are --
  1. We keep hearing about this "edict" from Jimmy Wales, but there's been no citation given proving that Jimbo ever uttered a word regarding this decision. It's all hearsay, and everyone just laps it up, because we all "assume good faith". Typical boys' club mentality -- let's have a community-managed encyclopedia, but on the big things, we'll just whisper amongst the leadership, and implement major changes without due process or any notice.
  2. Anybody notice that the various interwiki templates and shortcuts that promote other Wikimedia Foundation projects, and especially the for-profit entity of Wikia and its wikis, and other domains, appear to be unaffected by this rel="nofollow" policy? The Wikipedia community is waiting for some explanation why the rel="nofollow" policy has been implemented in a way that favors certain non-Wikimedia sites -- COUGH COUGH WIKIA DOT COM COUGH -- which would be apparently a violation of paragraph three, point four, of the Wikipedia conflict of interest policy.
Start the obfuscation process, Signpost! --JossBuckle Swami 03:19, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I can't speak to the second point you make, but the first is very simple to address. The developers have wanted to use nofollow for some time. The reason they didn't was that Jimbo objected. The people on-wiki who fight spam (primarily the same people who inhabit #wikipedia-spam) have been complaining about a rising tide of spam. This complaint prompted Jimbo to change his position on the matter. He ceased his objections, and the developers went forth with what they have been pining to do for a while. As for my source, I got this information straight from Jimbo. Raul654 03:29, 23 January 2007 (UTC)


  • If you do wite this up, you ought to include the reactions of those in the SEO bsuiness, who seem to be upset about this. Some pointers here. Note also that User:JossBuckle Swami above seems to be one of them, a sockpuppet of the infamous User:MyWikiBiz. --Calton | Talk 13:33, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Template:ArticleHistory

ArticleHistory is a new template that we (the FA people) cooked up and are *slowly* rolling out. It's a talk page template that gives the review history of an article in chronological order.

ArticleHistory merges the functionality of many templates, including: {{FAC}}, {{FAR}}, {{featured}}, {{FACfailed}}, {{Mainpage date to come}}, {{Mainpage date}}, {{Peerreview}}, 'etc. It was necessary because of articles like New York City (see Talk:New York City) which have gone through many reviews. This makes it much easier to keep track of them.

Here are the articles we put it on so far (the ones marked as tranclusion). The feedback has been very, very positive. Raul654 21:39, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Ooooh, pretty. :) That will help remove some of the boxes from the top of pages. Any change to add {{v0.5}}, {{v0.7}} and {{WPCD}} to it? Titoxd(?!?) 21:47, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Professor assigns students to vandalize Wikipedia

Read all about it Raul654 19:45, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Mentioned on an NBC primetime sitcom

Wikipedia was used on 30 Rock by a character (one of the writers, the trucker-looking one) researching Tracy Jordan's background. I've got it Tivo'ed if you need specifics. I don't know if this is the first mention outside the media/news/fake news. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 06:29, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia appeared in Weird Al's White and Nerdy, so no, not the first time. Raul654 07:28, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Although, to my knowledge, the first time Wikipedia's ever appeared in a sitcom, which is itself interesting. Ral315 (talk) 17:42, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Agreed, and it is so far as I know too. -- Zanimum 20:17, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

My suggestion for this Signpost entry:

-- Zanimum 20:17, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

And to think I didn't report this here because (1) I thought it was too trivial, (2) because it was not worldwide-enough, and (3) I thought I was the only one who watched 30 Rock.... Oh well If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 21:13, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
You're probably right on the third one, but NBC can't find any better content :) Ral315 (talk) 00:27, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Any reference is still a reference. The show may be relatively low-rated, but it's still notable in my books. I mean, it's a lot more notable than the newspaper articles that are listed weekly. -- Zanimum 15:24, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
True. Eh, why second-guess myself? If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 04:34, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism of John F. Street discussed in the Philadelphia Inquirer

  • Link to story: [28]
  • Link to vandalism diff: [29]

Took more than 10 hours until a revert :-/. Gzkn 09:16, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

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