Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2010-02-01
Writers wanted to cover strategy, public policy
As Eugene Eric Kim explains in his column this week, the Wikimedia strategic planning process is developing a five-year plan for where the Wikimedia Foundation will try to take the projects and where the communities might try to take the projects beyond the remit of the Foundation. But at the same time the strategy project suffers the same problem as many of Wikipedia's sister projects: strategy.wikimedia.org feels much farther than one click away.
One possibility for keeping the Wikipedia community more closely connected to the strategy process is to cover it regularly in the Signpost. This will require a writer familiar with the Strategic Planning wiki (or willing to become so). If you are interested in covering a strategy beat for the Signpost, please drop by the newsroom and let us know.
As Sue Gardner noted in her recent strategy letter to the Wikimedia trustees, the Wikipedias are the flagship projects and will continue to get the greatest share of Foundation attention and resources—making the outcome of the strategy project especially important for Wikipedians. Gardner also noted one important aspect of the "Wikimedia movement" in which the Foundation will not get involved: public policy. Advocacy for free culture and free software, open access to knowledge and cultural resources, copyright reform, web standards, and other issues important to much of the Wikimedia community will be left, as they have been, to local Wikimedia chapters and individual Wikimedians. The Signpost could be a useful venue to keep Wikimedians in the loop on significant developments in the broader free culture movement and the information policy arena; if you are interested in covering this regularly for the Signpost, let us know, or share your ideas on the suggestions page.
And as always, the Signpost welcomes new (or returning) writers for other areas as well. The greatest needs are for more help with "News and notes", "In the news", the "Sister projects" report, as well as the "Discussion report"—or just ask and we can put you to work on something that suits you.
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The challenges of strategic planning in a volunteer community
- Eugene Eric Kim (User:Eekim) is the Program Manager for Wikimedia's Strategic Planning project, which started in July 2009 and continues through July 2010.
Last September, I wrote a post on the Wikimedia Foundation blog announcing the Wikimedia strategic planning process. I wrote that we wanted to create a space where the Wikimedia community could collectively answer three questions:
- Where are we now?
- Where do we want to be in five years?
- How should we get there?
I also wrote, "Because of the scope and ambition of this process, it will be a long, messy, thrilling journey." Six months into the process, it's been exactly that: long, messy, and thrilling. There are two stories to tell, and I'd like to tell both. One is about the strategy itself: emerging themes and priorities, as well as gaps and controversies.
The other is about the planning process. In a way, this is the more interesting story, because the process has been a microcosm of Wikimedia in general, and the lessons and challenges we've faced are applicable to many, if not all of the projects. Want more contributors? Same here. Concerned about diversity? So are we. Want to create a friendlier, more constructive environment for discussion? Join the club.
For this first Signpost article, I want to kick off both stories by talking about "we". A five-year strategy affects everybody, and so everybody should have a say. But who is "everybody" exactly?
Suppose we were to limit our discussion to editors. There are literally millions of people who have edited Wikimedia projects. Most of them have no awareness about the larger Wikimedia universe. They don't know about Chapters or the Foundation. They probably don't even know about Village Pump. And we know very little about them.
Now add other people from the Wikimedia universe: readers, developers, donors, and so forth. Things get hairy quickly. What makes things hairier is that Wikimedia is consensus-driven. How can you get consensus if you can't define "we"? This is a strategic challenge for the Wikimedia community, and it's a challenge we've faced in the strategic planning process.
From a content perspective, some things are obvious and uncontroversial. If the sites are not up, for example, Wikimedia does not exist. So making sure the sites are up all the time is a huge priority.
Other issues are complicated by the question of "we". China is a great example of this. Wikimedia's vision asks us to imagine a world where every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge in their own language. Right now, our best estimate is that 400 million people world-wide (about 6 percent of the world's population) access Wikimedia sites every month. We clearly have a ways to go before we achieve our vision.
If we were to pick markets to focus on, China would seem to be at the top of the list. There are currently 300 million people in China on the Internet, and 640 million people with mobile phones. However, less than 1 percent of these people access Wikipedia, so the growth opportunity there is huge.
As part of the strategic planning process, we formed 14 task forces to explore specific topics and to make a series of recommendations. One of those task forces was on China, and it identified a number of possible ways to improve usage there. One recommendation called for greater promotion. Another encouraged partnerships with students and teachers at universities.
All of these recommendations were well-deliberated and researched, but they did not answer the question of who would undertake these activities. This past month, the Foundation looked at the emerging recommendations and stated where it thought it should prioritize its resources and where it should not prioritize its resources. One of those areas that it said it shouldn't prioritize was China.
Some have read the Foundation's statement as a signal that "we" shouldn't prioritize China. However, the Foundation does not equal "we". The Foundation controls the servers and the trademarks, which is a hugely critical role, but beyond that, there is only so much it can do. Because the Chinese government wants to censor content, working with them is a practical impossibility for the Foundation, which has a staff of 35 people. Google, a company that employs thousands of people, recently pulled its operations out of China because of the difficulties working with the government. Realistically, if it's too much for a company the size of Google to handle, what could the Foundation achieve there?
There are people who are much better suited to institute change in China. It starts with the local editors, who understand the issues unique to the Chinese language projects and who are in the best position to forge the right partnerships and build a stronger local movement.
As the priorities for the Wikimedia movement start to take shape, one of the big remaining questions is, who should do what? That conversation is currently taking shape on the strategy wiki, and I hope you'll join the discussion.
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New CTO, Britain Loves Wikipedia, Telefónica partnership, Multimedia and more
Danese Cooper hired as CTO
Danese Cooper has been hired as the Wikimedia Foundation's new Chief Technical Officer (CTO), according to an announcement by Sue Gardner. Cooper has a long history of involvement with open-source projects, leading open source projects at Sun Microsystems, then Intel, and most recently REvolution Computing.
The announcement was covered by tech news outlets, including CNET. According to User:Steven Walling, Cooper will be the only female CTO of a top-10 website. Cooper, who starts on 4 February, fills the gap left by the departure of long-time CTO Brion Vibber (see previous story).
Britain loves Wikipedia
Britain Loves Wikipedia, a drive to increase Commons photographs of British museum content, officially began on 31 January. The month-long competition and series of events began at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and will continue across the United Kingdom throughout February according to the official Wikimedia UK press release. Numerous prizes will be offered for the best photography. The event's website has more details.
Telefónica partnership
Wikimedia has signed a partnership deal with Telefónica, one of the largest mobile phone companies in the world, serving Europe and the Americas. According to the press release and press release questions and answers page, the deal will include co-branded content, including the "development of mobile & TV applications using knowledge from Wikimedia’s projects", and access to Wikipedia on mobile phones.
This is the second deal with a large multinational phone company that Wikimedia has formed, following last year's deal with Orange Telecom (see previous story). Telefónica was also a sponsor of Wikimania 2009.
Strategic planning recommendations
The recommendations developed by the various strategy project task forces have been posted. (See related story).
Multimedia usability project updates
Neil Kandalgaonkar has joined the multimedia usability team. Additionally, an update on the multimedia usability project was posted to the Wikimedia Foundation blog.
The Multimedia Usability project has also issued a call for proposals for professional usability and user experience studies of the file upload process on Wikimedia projects. The deadline for proposals is 10 February.
An office hours to discuss the project will be held on IRC on 4 February, from 16:00 to 17:00 UTC; see the office hours page for more.
Wiki conferences
Two Wikipedia-related academic conferences are coming up: WikiSym (which is being held in conjunction with Wikimania in Gdańsk, Poland from 7–9 July) and the 2nd part of the "Critical Point of View" conference (CPOV), to be held in Amsterdam, 26–27 March. WikiSym has an open call for papers, while CPOV is seeking contributions to a reader scheduled for 2011.
Briefly
- Following up on last week's article on birth and death trends in Wikipedia biographies, Andrew Gray (User:Shimgray) has a blog post extending the analysis to include German, Spanish, French and Czech Wikipedias.
- Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, posted her September and October reports to the Board of Trustees.
- The deadline for listing a bid for Wikimania 2011 is 8 February. Bidding cities then have until 29 March to provide their bid information (venue, team, etc.)
- Magnus Manske posted a related places script to the toolserver. It plots related articles with coordinates onto Google Maps.
- The Free Culture Conference 2010 is scheduled for 13–14 February in Washington, D.C.; the conference will have a focus on global access to knowledge.
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Wikipedia on CDs, BBC uses Wikipedia content, and more
CDPedia
TechEYE.net reports that an Argentinian user's group has condensed a version of the Spanish Wikipedia for distribution to remote schools. The project, "CDPedia," can be fit onto either a CD or DVD. The DVD contains all articles and 98% of the images as of June 2008; the CD version is slightly more selective. A more current version is in the works. It is written in the Python programming language and will be distributed via Bittorrent, burnt onto disks, and distributed to areas without broadband connectivity. The code is free online (in Spanish).
Enriching the BBC's Wildlife Finder
The BBC transcludes Wikipedia content to provide information on the subjects of its Wildlife Finder (eg – Killer whale). Their FAQ reasons that this provides quality, accessible information. They also express confidence in Wikipedia's response to vandalism, and they urge others to collaborate.
Briefly
- "The Great Levelling?", part one of The Virtual Revolution, a four-part BBC series on the history of the internet, presents Wikipedia as a champion for freedom of information that creates a level field for people to share ideas and creativity. Airing began Sunday, 30 January.
- Jimmy Wales was interviewed on CNN on 19 January. The interview touched upon flagged revisions, backup copies of Wikipedia, the continued non-profit status of the Wikimedia Foundation, BLP policy and the Seigenthaler incident.
- The New York Times reported on 24 January about the editing contest that Google is sponsoring for the Swahili Wikipedia (see previous story).
- The vampire comparison chart tickled a reporter's fancy on 28 January.
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WikiProject Dinosaurs: Can You Dig It?
With 30 featured articles, 27 good articles, and one featured list, WikiProject Dinosaurs has a long track record of delivering strong content. Started in April 2004 by Fredrik, the project has grown to include over 100 members working on over 1,300 articles. The project maintains an open list of tasks, an image approval system, and a wealth of resources for editors to consult when writing articles. The project also has a backlog of unassessed articles that the project's members could use some help with.
This week, the Report interviewed six members of WikiProject Dinosaurs: Dinoguy2, HMallison, J. Spencer, Firsfron of Ronchester, Casliber, and Abyssal.
What motivated you to become a member of WikiProject Dinosaurs? Does your professional background involve dinosaurs or are you simply a dino enthusiast?
- Dinoguy2: I first started editing Wikipedia dinosaur articles in 2006. I don't have any professional paleontological training, just a long-time paleo enthusiast, but I saw a lot of gaps and important missing information in these articles (at the time) that I could use my own knowledge to fill in. I later began researching new information to add to articles that wasn't already in my head or available elsewhere online.
- HMallison: I am a professional vertebrate palaeontologist. My special field is biomechanics, the future of which I see with advanced computional methods that allow investigating topics that previously were simply too complex to compute "with pen and paper". Thus, computers are "always on my mind" – and with them, modern communcation tools, open access, and internet-based knowledge bases. Wikipedia is clearly the prime source for most journalists and laypeople, and increasingly displacing dinosaur enthusiasts' websites as the (apparently) best and most informative source of information for amateurs, and even for professionals who want a quick, general overview. I, for one, Google any new research interest in detail, and almost always there is a helpful Wikipedia page. Lots of information on Wikipedia is, by necessity, based on encyclopedic tomes, which (again by necessity) are always somewhat outdated. In a field in which each new decade brings a revolution, this is not especially helpful, and I feel obliged to contribute my meager knowledge to ease the lot of others in my situation. Thus, I started editing those articles I have expert knowledge on anyways, which is especially satisfying because they mostly concern dinosaurs that have been somewhat neglected.
- J. Spencer: Oddly enough, the thing that got me interested was the article on Palaeosaurus (most of the work was done in summer 2006, and the article is something of a fossil itself now; one of these days I'll have to refurbish it). I'd been registered since the fall of 2005, but hadn't really done much. It was this article that gave me an idea of the potential, that there could be detailed explorations of animals off the beaten path. I'm parts both an enthusiast and a professional in background. My current work does involve paleontology, but dinosaurs appear only occasionally.
- Firsfron of Ronchester: I started editing dinosaur articles in February 2006, beginning with Archaeopteryx (which is now a featured article). I do not have a degree in any paleontological field. In the late 1990s as a Biology major, I worked with Rana subaquavocalis, trying to save endangered Leopard Frogs from extinction with research and observation through The Nature Conservancy. Amphibians may become the "dinosaurs" of the future, as their numbers are in sharp decline worldwide.
- Casliber: I started editing in May 2006 when I found out I was going on a game show, for which I'd selected horned dinosaurs as a specialty topic. I'd just read a book on them and had been rabidly interested in dinosaurs as a kid and kept in touch with updates ever since. A lot of my early edits were to various horned dinosaurs to brush up. I loved the collaborative nature of an active WikiProject, which WikiProject dinosaurs was (it was also where I first learned to write featured articles). I have a science background, but there is little overlap between psychiatry and paleontology ...
- Abyssal: I'm a part-time evolutionary biology-geology double majoring undergrad who aspires to be a professional dinosaur paleontologist. I became a big fan of Wikipedia early in my career as a college student when I found just how useful it was for homework-related research. As a dinosaur nerd, I naturally took interest in Wikipedia's dinosaur coverage. I was impressed by its depth and thoroughness. The list of dinosaurs especially stunned me. Before my eyes was a list of literally every known dinosaur, each name being a relevant link to an encyclopedia article. It was like a religious experience. And I found that despite the depth, there was actually a lot that needed done. I rolled up my sleeves, got busy, and I'm still obsessed these many years later.
WikiProject Dinosaurs currently has 30 featured articles and one featured list. Which of these articles are you most proud of being involved with? Overall, what have been some of the project's greatest achievements?
- Dinoguy2: I think the project's finest achievement is still one of its first: the FA for Psittacosaurus. This is one of the best known dinosaurs in the world, scientifically speaking, with thousands of known specimens and a huge amount of ground to cover. I wasn't that involved with this one, but I think our editors did a fantastic job of summarizing all the relevant information in an understandable manner, down to in-house illustrations of each species. This is also one of the few examples of an article on a specific dinosaur genus that has spawned satellite articles on specific species, etc. For me personally, I'm particularly proud of our article for Amphicoelias, the largest dinosaur known but one that hardly anybody has heard of. This was my first attempt to really do some in-depth research and summarize every bit of published literature I could find in a readable way. With help from the other project members I've gotten this one up to a GA, and maybe one day an FA with a little more polishing, though it would be odd to have an FA covering a single, lost bone!
- HMallison: So far, I have only been mostly involved in minor edits on some large articles. The only GA article I was involved in (a huge thanks to all involved here!!!) is Plateosaurus – featured articles (FA) I have so far not found to be in need of my work! The people looking after them are doing an awesome job! However, there's a bunch of things out there that have been neglected, and that deserve being FAC-ed. One of my favorites is the Psittacosaurus article. I worked on that beast once upon a time, and if I had had those resources at hand back then ... I can't even begin to describe how important it would have been for a lowly PhD student back then! Certainly one of the greatest achievements, not only within the project, but on all of Wikipedia!
- J. Spencer: My favorites among the featured content are Allosaurus, Iguanodon, and Massospondylus. The most rewarding topics for me are those where there's been research from a number of different angles, as I like being able to present as many aspects to a given dinosaur (or group of dinosaurs, or what have you) as possible. Massospondylus and Iguanodon are complex, heavily-studied genera, and they took a lot of collaboration. Oh, and Psittacosaurus is also quite an article, so I'll recommend it too!
- Firsfron: The most rewarding moment for me was getting Massospondylus up to Featured Article; this was no easy task, as many journal articles on this genus flatly contradict one another, and several papers are very obscure; the collaboration on this article was very nice. I'm also quite proud of List of dinosaurs, where we keep the wikilinks blue as new genera are described. The project's greatest achievements, however, may be the series of excellent FAs on ornithopods, mostly written by J. Spencer, which include Iguanodon, Lambeosaurus, Parasaurolophus, Edmontosaurus, and Thescelosaurus. These articles are less frequented than the popular "scary" dinosaurs, and thus attract little vandalism and few POV edits.
- Casliber. Not sure. I guess the most input I did was getting some of the old names – Stegosaurus, Triceratops and Diplodocus – to featured article status, as well as helping on Iguanodon, which struck me as an enjoyable collaboration.
- Abyssal: Wikiproject Dinosaur's single greatest success: to have an article on every single kind of non-avian dinosaur. That achievement is far greater and more significant than any single article getting to wear a gold star in the corner.
Are all articles in your project about specific dinosaurs, or are there articles covering broader topics and other related subjects? What gaps in coverage exist that could be filled by new contributors?
- Dinoguy2: Early on in the project's development, we settled on a pattern of one article per genus of dinosaur (other zoology-based projects go down to species level) with a few exceptions, such as Species of Psittacosaurus. The big push initially was to make sure every dinosaur was covered with an article and that all the articles contained factually correct and verifiable information. Now that that goal has mostly been met, we have expanded into other dinosaur-related topics, such as the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction Event and the Bone Wars, as well as articles on notable paleontologists. I think this is one thing we could really use a hand fleshing out – I get a little OCD when I see a red link to a well-known paleontologist's name, though I don't usually have the time or resources to research biography myself. I've also been involved lately in fleshing out our numerous under-developed articles on specific rock formations. I find these really interesting because it's a chance to convey a specific point in time and place, and exactly what dinosaur lived together where. The problem is that while I have the resources to fill out taxon lists and editors like User:Abyssal have done a great job in formatting the pages with a consistent and easy-to-use style, we still need some qualified geology buffs to build out the actual article sections.
- HMallison: The general rule is (apparently – I am a noob here!) one article per genus. With most genera covered, interesting articles start popping up that cover the history of dinosaur palaeontology (and what a colourful area that is!), while others cover topics that deal with the palaeoecology and -biology as well as the palaeoenvironment that concerned dinosaurs. In the end, this will lead to a description of "the whole picture", the dream-come-true for anyone interested in dinosaurs.
- J. Spencer: People who are interested in the human aspects (the paleontologists and the history of study) and geologic aspects would certainly help our coverage. In terms of specific groups, our current editors are mostly concentrated in theropods, with some people working on prosauropods, horned dinosaurs, and ornithopods. The sauropods and armored dinosaurs are the laggards at this time. Also, because we work mostly at the genus level, some of the higher-level groups are thin in coverage.
- Firsfron: Most of the project's work has focused on individual genera (kinds) of dinosaurs, or families of dinosaurs, simply because more readers are interested in Allosaurus than its describer, Othniel Charles Marsh.
- Casliber: The group articles, such as Sauropoda or Ornithopoda, seem to be less popular for some reason – ditto the ages, Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous.
Writing articles on the taxonomy and anatomy of living creatures can become fairly technical. I'd assume that writing about prehistoric creatures adds a whole new dimension to the kinds of research needed to write a good article on a dinosaur. What can the average editor contribute to dinosaur articles, even if they don't have specialized knowledge in the field?
- Dinoguy2: Collaboration is key. We have a great stable of editors, both professionals and amateurs, with a wide knowledge base. So if one of us is particularly knowledgeable about the taxonomy of a group, you can bet another will know something about their biology, the history of research into the group, and their anatomy or ecology. Average editors have a lot of potential ground to add bits and pieces to, or maybe a general enough knowledge to let us know when we're getting tunnel vision or the writing has gotten too technical because we're too close to that particular field to have noticed.
- HMallison: One thing most laypeople do not realise is the dearth of information on many dinosaur species or specimens in the scientific literature. Money is tight, few people work in the field, and thus many fossils that have been described a hundred years ago now rot unregarded in some cellar. Literally. Therefore, it may be sufficient to read two or three publications, check an encyclopedic work such as the famous "The Dinosauria", and – lo and behold! – you know all there is to know about this beast! Adding such information to a stub is invaluable! Additionally, there is always the task, for each and every article, of gathering the widely spread tidbits of helpful information. The little asides in publications with titles suggesting they deal with a different universe. When several amateurs pool such knowledge, it is amazing what they can achieve.
- J. Spencer: A fresh viewpoint is always helpful, but beyond that, there's a lot that can be done. Heck, somebody who's got a copy of the electronic appendix to Tom Holtz' dinosaur encyclopedia (can be downloaded here) can do a lot with sourcing basic information; I use it for size estimates, for example.
- Firsfron: We always need new (and serious) editors, and we rarely have more than six or eight active editors at any time. The articles at the bottom end of WP:DABS need major improvements: sources, verifiable content, illustrations, etc. If you're interested in joining, please do. We want to recruit editors to the project who are interested in sourcing and verifying content; we do not need editors who add unsourced material. We get enough of that as it is, natch.
- Abyssal: One method I've found useful is to just crack open a paleontology book or journal article and start going sentence-by-sentence looking for information that hasn't made it to Wikipedia. A lot of the time it only takes a couple of sentences before finding something worth adding (properly attributed, of course) to the relevant article. It's not as tedious as it sounds and can be a very rewarding way for a wikinoob to leave a mark. I've spent many hours doing this.
The project maintains a category of approved dinosaur images. What kinds of dinosaur images are preferred for encyclopedic articles and why?
- Firsfron: Dinoguy2 headed up this part of the project back in 2006, and he's been dedicated to removing bad images ever since. Although everyone else has pitched in, the WikiProject would have been left with tons of undesirable illustrative material if it were not for his efforts.
- Dinoguy2: I was part of the first push to ensure that the quality of images in our articles matched the quality of the text, and I helped set up our current image review process, which I think has helped enormously. I'm an amateur paleo-artist myself, so including really accurate images that reflect current knowledge is very important to me and a big part of my current participation in the project. Basically, I and other editors agreed to a set of standards for images that says unless an image is of cultural or historic value to an article, they must meet very rigorous standards for accuracy. Part of the reason for this is that I know I personally am very visually oriented, so if a person like me comes to an article, they can be easily misled about any number of topics just by looking at an inaccurate image. Is the subject dinosaur anatomically correct, and exhibiting a pose or range of motion consistent with current biomechanical studies? Depicted in the correct environment, interacting with species that were actual contemporaries? If any of these elements are off, a casual Wikipedia browser could come away with bad or outdated info, even if the image is contradicted by an accurate description in the text. In short, contributing artists need to have really done their research, but I think it's worth it to have such a strict vetting process.
- Abyssal: We have spectacular, dedicated artists in the project. Their prolificity and commitment to accuracy (thanks in large part to the image review) is remarkable. We owe them a great debt. I think the best kind of image for an article is a well thought-out sideview illustration. They're artistically a bit sterile, but they are the best at doing their job – exhibiting the anatomy of the animal as it (might have) looked in life.
- HMallison: I am usually quite unhappy with images. That is mostly caused by bad museum mounts, which a photographer can't correct, and by incorrect reconstruction drawings in the literature, on which artists base their reconstructions. The review process in place at the Dinosaur project helps a lot, mainly because it vets out a lot of nonsense that amateurs can't catch on their own.
Has your project developed particularly close relationships with any other projects?
- Dinoguy2: WP:Dinosaurs has some close ties and many overlapping editors with our "sister projects" that cover other prehistoric animals, such as WikiProject Pterosaurs and WikiProject Sea Monsters. WikiProject Paleontology even has its own image review now, following the lead of WikiProject Dinosaurs, so that scientific standards have begun to be applied to other prehistoric animal images, from prehistoric birds to fishes.
- Firsfron: WP:DINO works with WikiProject Birds frequently, and they often review our articles at FA and GA (and we try to reciprocate). They're a great team over there, with dedicated editors interested in sourcing and verifiable content, and it's fun working with them.
- J. Spencer: WP:DINO overlaps extensively with other paleo projects, and at times members work with WikiProject Birds or WikiProject Mammals concerning prehistoric members of those groups (although this was mostly before WikiProject Paleontology took off).
- Abyssal: The membership lists of Wikiproject Dinosaurs and Wikiproject Paleontology have almost one hundred percent overlap. How's that for a close relationship? :P
What are WikiProject Dinosaur's most pressing needs? How can a new contributor help today?
- HMallison: An area that needs a lot of work is that of language and style. Lots of articles read like a hybrid between a children's Book of Dinosaurs and expert articles. Getting this smoothed out, and adding in the bits that make for smooth reading, such as short sentences on erroneous "common knowledge", why it is wrong, and how the new, hopefully correct hypothesis was developed, are a major task, and one that people with a love for a certain type of dinosaur usually have the right touch for.
- Dinoguy2: One major need right now is development of the articles not based on specific types of dinosaur. Articles like Dinosaur classification and other related topics, like the ecology present in specific rock formations, are still in the early stages of development. Of course we always need help keeping our thousands of dino-specific articles up to date whenever new research comes out, which can be a full-time job in itself. And we definitely need more people with a strong interest in ornithischians and sauropods ... I know theropods are much more interesting, but I'm man enough to admit that the herbivores need some love too!
- J. Spencer: Are there any fans of titanosaurs or non-marine sedimentary rocks of the Mesozoic in the house?
- Firsfron: The end of WP:DABS lists the articles with the most pressing need for expansion and sourcing. A few of these articles can easily be doubled in size by adding just one or two sourced sentences. We need more editors interested in sourcing content, particularly in neglected articles concerning fossil material which has been neglected for decades or centuries.
- Abyssal: Crack open a paleontology book or journal article and start going sentence-by-sentence looking for information that hasn't made it to Wikipedia. A lot of the time it only takes a couple of sentences before finding something worth adding (properly attributed, of course) to relevant article. It's not as tedious as it sounds and can be a very rewarding way for a wikinoob to leave a mark. I've spent many hours doing this.
- Casliber: Where does one start? All the above answers are bang on the money. Some articles like Apatosaurus would be great to buff up, illustrating famous adventures in paleontology. Others such as the periods Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous are important to really help fill out knowledge to the masses. Any of the group articles like Sauropoda help flesh out evolution and changing attitudes of these beasties.
Next week, WikiProject Report will feature a project that would make the inhabitants of Mount Olympus proud. Until then, feel free to read past reports in the archive.
Reader comments
Sister projects roundup
Provisional new Wiktionary logo chosen
Wiktionary essentially has two logos at the moment. Supported by a straw poll in April 2009, a group of Wiktionary editors began a second logo contest, to unify Wiktionary's visual identity.
The second round of voting for this logo selection process concluded on 31 January 2010. Although the results are not yet official, the puzzle dictionary logo appears to have won with 558 votes, while the tiles logo received 455 votes. Each language Wiktionary will vote on whether to approve the winning logo, with a 60% approval rate required for adoption.
Global sysops
Global sysops are very much like stewards (they have cross-wiki adminship), however, they are meant for small wikis that do not have a large number of administrators.
Proposal
Below are the exact words of the proposal:
Because of a shortage of stewards and the continued abuse of our wikis, a new global user group is proposed: global sysops. These people would be highly trusted users with a strong track record of cross-wiki contributions. Global sysops would be given sysop-like privileges on many small wikis, but would not be simply users with sysop tools on all wikis. In addition to the standard tools, they would have access to global blocking, but would use these tools only in urgent cases of abuse, or for non-controversial maintenance. They would have no editorial control over content or the local community
By default, global sysop would be enabled for every project that meets one of the following criteria:
- fewer than ten administrators exist; or
- fewer than three administrators have made a logged action within the past two months.
Projects may opt-in or opt-out at their own discretion if they obtain local consensus. Simply inform any steward of the community's decision. A wiki set will be used to give rights on the included wikis only.
Complaints
Some concerns have been brought up, like the fact that for small-language Wikipedias, the global sysops might have to rely on a somewhat clumsy tool like Google Translate. Also, many users are concerned about the possibility of misuse of the global blocking ability.
Voting
For more information about the proposal, please visit the proposal description page. The voting phase, however, has now closed, and a final list of voters can be seen here.
Steward elections
Candidate submissions for the Steward elections 2010 are going on now. A steward is basically a cross-wiki admin. To nominate a user through January 28, visit m:Stewards/elections 2010. Voting will begin February 7 at the same location.
Strategic planning
The Wikimedia Strategic Planning task force's recommendations for 2010 are up for discussion at the recommendations page. The recommendations are based on strategy and discussion, providing suggestions for the future of Wikimedia.
Reader comments
Approved this week
Administrators
Three editors were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: Bwilkins (nom), Everyking (nom) and Leonard^Bloom (nom).
Featured pages
Twenty-eight articles were promoted to featured status this week: A Rugrats Chanukah (nom), Supernatural (season 2) (nom), Helmut Lent (nom), M-28 Business (Ishpeming–Negaunee, Michigan) (nom), Muhammad al-Durrah incident (nom), Chorioactis (nom), Hurricane Rick (2009) (nom), Johann von Klenau (nom), Jay Pritzker Pavilion (nom), Halley's Comet (nom), Oakwood Cemetery (Troy, New York) (nom), Banksia cuneata (nom), Battle of the Nile (nom), Amazing Grace (nom), Charles Eaton (RAAF officer) (nom), Henry Edwards (entomologist) (nom), Steve Dodd (nom), John Diefenbaker (nom), James Whiteside McCay (nom), Second Test, 1948 Ashes series (nom), Carucage (nom), Bodiam Castle (nom), Jack the Ripper (nom), Rambles in Germany and Italy (nom), Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (nom), Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Baxter Healthcare (nom), SECR K and SR K1 classes (nom) and Thomas Baker (aviator) (nom).
Six lists were promoted to featured status this week: List of awards and nominations received by William Gibson (nom), List of Oklahoma State Cowboys head football coaches (nom), IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship (nom), List of Houston Astros first-round draft picks (nom), List of international cricket centuries by Donald Bradman (nom) and List of England Twenty20 International cricketers (nom).
No topics were promoted to featured status this week.
No portals were promoted to featured status this week.
The following featured articles were displayed on the Main Page as Today's featured article this week: Accurate News and Information Act, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Edward VI of England, "Ode on a Grecian Urn", Hurricane Fabian, Fantastic Universe and Richard Gavin Reid.
Former featured pages
Two articles were delisted this week: Boy Scouts of America membership controversies (nom) and Phil Collins (nom).
No lists were delisted this week.
No topics were delisted this week.
No portals were delisted this week.
Featured media
The following featured pictures were displayed on the Main Page as picture of the day this week: Sydney Opera House, Illustration for the first edition of The Hunting of the Snark, Illustration of Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice, Citrus swallowtail, Bartholomeus van der Helst's 1648 painting depicting a company of schutterij, Lady Barron Falls and George Washington Carver.
No featured sounds were promoted this week.
No featured pictures were demoted this week.
Three pictures were promoted to featured status this week.
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Kunzea ericoides sprig
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Arbitration Report
The Arbitration Committee opened no cases this week and closed one, leaving two open.
Open cases
- Chabad movement (Week 4): A case opened to examine accusations of biased editing and combat on articles related to Judaism's Chabad movement. Currently in the evidence/workshop phase.
- MZMcBride II (Week 2): A case opened to look into allegations of misconduct by MZMcBride with regards to BLPs and Thekohser. Currently in the evidence/workshop phase.
Recently closed
- Tothwolf: A case opened to examine the behavior of four editors: Tothwolf, JBsupreme, Miami33139, and Theserialcomma. Tothwolf was placed under a civility restriction, while Miami33139 and JBsupreme were both rebuked (both being cautioned to abide by best deletion practices, and the latter to avoid incivility and personal attacks). As this case was active when Stephen Bain's term as an arbitrator expired, he retired from the Arbitration Committee shortly after its conclusion. (Notification for the case, Notification for Bain's retirement).
Amendments
- Speed of light: An amendment to this case makes exceptions to the topic ban upon Brews ohare so that he can edit and discuss the images in that article with regards to featured article candidacies.
Motions
- Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern European mailing list: A pair of motions amend the topic ban on Radeksz so that he may create a category for and add sources to unreferenced Polish biographies and authorize three users to act as proxies for Piotrus with regards to Lech Wałęsa's Good Article nomination.
- In lieu of a full case, the Arbitration Committee passed a motion to desysop Craigy144 due to his unresponsiveness to concerns that several of his contributions are copyright violations.
Miscellaneous
- The BASC allowed an appeal from Green Squares.
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Technology Report
Usability beta supplemental release
On the Wikimedia Tech Blog, Trevor Pascal announced that the Usability Team is preparing a supplemental release that will "bring more stability and functionality" to the current Babaco usability beta. The largest change is a switch away from the previous HTML textarea to an HTML iframe and a special design mode supported by modern browsers. This will allow for future functionality such as collapsible templates and syntax highlighting.
Other improvements include a more accurate table of contents with controls for expanding, collapsing, and resizing, a link dialog that intelligently detects whether the user intends to make an internal or external link, and language specific icons for features like bolding and italics. According to the post, the upgrades will be deployed "in the coming days".
Software enhancements
The following changes were made to the MediaWiki software this week. There will be a delay of up to a few months before changes take effect on Wikimedia wikis.
- Enable creation of templates that substitute their contents when the template itself is substituted. (Bug 22297)
- Make information on a global user's unified accounts available through the API. (Bug 22312)
Bots approved
Three new bot tasks were approved this past week.
- KittyBot – Recategorize pages in categories renamed via CFD.
- RjwilmsiBot (Task 2) – Tag redirect pages with various templates specified at WP:TMR.
- WildBot (Task 3) – Check pages with links to sections of other articles to ensure that the section header or other anchor actually exists, and tag the linking article if not.
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