Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2016-03-23
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-03-23/From the editors
Be weary on the Ides of March
Shakespeare had a fortune teller forewarn Julius Caesar to beware the Ides of March. Given Caesar was assassinated that day, it's fair to say he was insufficiently wary. As are, it seems, our viewers, as numbers are significantly down on last week. Or perhaps they're simply weary, with a significant holdover of topics indicating that they found little new to be interested in.
For the full top-25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions. For a list of the most edited articles of the week, see here.
As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of March 13 to 19, 2016, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:
Rank Article Class Views Image Notes 1 Donald Trump 
2,412,293 
"Donald Trump", unsurprisingly, was the 17th most viewed article of 2015, during which it accrued over 14 million views. In the four weeks it has stood at #1 on this list, the article has garnered nearly 21 million views. If that number were included in last year's list, it would be at #5. Just for the last four weeks. So completely has Trump fused together the two principal preoccupations of our viewers (current events and entertainment) that it is simply impossible to know which reason is driving them more. Do our viewers see his presidential campaign as a genuine epochal shift in the political landscape of the US? Or simply as yet another reality TV show? Come the end of year one of President Trump's administration, it will be interesting to see if the show is still going. 2 Saint Patrick's Day 
2,042,316 
Every man has his day, at least if he's a saint. And when your day happens to involve copious alcohol consumption and opportunities for grade school cruelty, it is bound to be popular. 3 Merrick Garland
1,696,246 
Five days before Barack Obama named this federal judge from his home turf of Chicago his nominee for Justice of the Supreme Court, Republican senator Orrin Hatch cited him as a moderate candidate that Obama would never choose. Of course, the fact that Obama did choose Garland has not stopped Senate Republicans hoping to block confirmation until after the next president is elected, citing the "Biden Rule"; a term which didn't exist before this year and even Joe Biden has contested its existence. 4 10 Cloverfield Lane 
865,546 
The fact that this science fiction thriller, which was produced by J. J. Abrams and includes Mary Elizabeth Winstead (pictured) in the cast, has apparently nothing to do with the original Cloverfield (it was initially titled "The Cellar") does not seem to have deterred audiences or critics. It has earned $45 million in its first ten days; triple its production budget, and has a 90% RT rating. 5 Republican Party presidential primaries, 2016
721,981 
Seventeen began. Three remain. In the wake of the "Super Tuesday II" primary elections on the 15th, with Trump storming four of five states. The holdout, Ohio, was won by its current governor, John Kasich; much, I am sure, to his relief, as he had said he would drop out if it was not. Poor Marco Rubio had not said he would drop out if he lost his home state of Florida, but did so following his loss there. With the contest quiet until the next big primary push on the 22nd, the Presidential election has entered a kind of surreal cruise control, as the country waits to see if Trump can reach that magic number of 1237 delegates he needs to secure the nomination without a brokered convention. 6 Genie (feral child)
687,378 
This horrifying story, in which a young child was forced to spend the first thirteen years of her life in a blacked out room without any human contact, became the topic of intense discussion on Reddit this week, with many asking very difficult questions; was it right for the researchers to test her the way they did, or was she simply too good an opportunity to study cognitive development? Should she have gone back to her mother, who claimed she was forced into the abuse, or stayed with the researchers who had become, against scientific ethics, her surrogate parents? There are no easy answers when dealing with something so complex and fragile as a human life. 7 Ides of March
670,947 
The Ides of March (or March 15), the day on which Julius Caesar was assassinated, has lived on ever since as a metaphor for violent political transition; whether revolution in the name of freedom (As Brutus himself suggested on coins minted after the event) or betrayal in the name of political ideals, as William Shakespeare suggested in his Julius Caesar. With so-called "Super Tuesday II" falling on the Ides of March this year, and its resultant downfall of Marco Rubio, many are seeing the date reaffirm itself as a time of political reckoning. 8 Deaths in 2016 
634,903 
The annual list of deaths has always been a fairly consistent visitor to this list, averaging about 500,000 views a week. Since the death of David Bowie, this article's average views have jumped. 9 Saint Patrick
627,900 
The patron saint of Ireland was not, in fact, Irish, and actually may have been born in what would some day become England (but wasn't yet, so patriotic Irish readers can relax); he owes his status in Ireland to Irish pirates, who abducted him and took him there, giving him the familiarity he needed when he returned many years later to convert the locals. 10 Ariana Grande
619,144 
She isn't known for her acting chops, but Ariana Grande, by all accounts, crushed it as guest host of Saturday Night Live this week, doing spot-on impressions of Britney Spears, Shakira, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, and even Jennifer Lawrence, as well as a debut of her latest single, "Be Alright".
Angolan file sharers cause trouble for Wikipedia Zero; the 3D printer edit war; a culture based on change and turmoil
Angolan file sharers cause trouble for Wikipedia Zero
Motherboard, the tech website of Vice magazine, features two articles by Jason Koebler on the rise of Wikipedia Zero as a free file sharing platform in Angola (March 23, 25).
Wikimedia and Facebook have given Angolans free access to their websites, but not to the rest of the internet. So, naturally, Angolans have started hiding pirated movies and music in Wikipedia articles and linking to them on closed Facebook groups, creating a totally free and clandestine file sharing network in a country where mobile internet data is extremely expensive.
It's an undeniably creative use of two services that were designed to give people in the developing world some access to the internet. But now that Angolans are causing headaches for Wikipedia editors and the Wikimedia Foundation, no one is sure what to do about it.
The sharing of copyrighted files via Wikipedia Zero conflicts with Wikimedia sites' copyright rules, and volunteers from Portuguese-language Wikimedia projects (Angola is a former Portuguese colony, thus Portuguese is widely spoken there) recently raised their troubles with Angolan Wikipedia Zero users on the Wikimedia-l mailing list (see the brief note in last week's Signpost issue).
The problems were first brought to the Wikimedia Foundation's attention last summer; they are complicated by the fact that Angola has some of the laxest copyright laws in the world: what Angolan users are doing may, in some cases, not even be illegal in their country. But the Wikimedia Foundation is located in the United States, and a Phabricator task has been created in response to Koebler's article to "prevent Wikipedia Zero exploitation of uploads to share copyrighted media".
Koebler maintains that this kind of situation is a natural consequence of "digital colonialism". In a follow-up article he argues that "Wikipedia doesn't realise it's the developing world's Internet gatekeeper":
Angolans on Wikipedia Zero and the Portuguese Wikipedia editors they are annoying don't have anything resembling equal access to the internet. Wikipedia Zero and Facebook Free Basics are the only services that many Angolans have access to (for the record, this is happening in other countries with Wikipedia Zero, too).
To many Angolans, Koebler says, living in a country where 50 MB of mobile data costs $2.50 and the median annual salary is $720, Wikipedia Zero and Facebook Zero (now renamed Free Basics) have simply become the Internet.
The Wikimedia Foundation sent Koebler a response to his first article, which he posted online. Koebler essentially dismissed the response, and frames the dispute as part of a larger debate about zero-rated services against the backdrop of the Indian government's recent decision to outlaw zero-rated services on net neutrality grounds:
There's an intense debate going on right now over whether zero rating has any role in bridging the digital divide and in connecting the half of the world that doesn’t have regular internet access. What we risk human rights groups like Access Now say, is telling people in developing countries that being able to connect to just a few sites is "enough", an effect that "tips the balance in favor of zero-rated services, effectively salting the earth of low-cost net neutral alternatives in the future." That argument was enough for India to ban Wikipedia Zero, Free Basics, and zero-rating altogether earlier this year.
Koebler quotes Vishal Misra, a Columbia University professor who provided testimony to the Indian parliament in the recent debates. Noting that the Wikimedia Foundation has received less criticism than Facebook for its zero-rated service, Misra says:
Wikipedia is a nonprofit, but that's about it. There hasn't been a backlash but I don't think people who have been arguing this issue with any level of depth have said that Wikipedia Zero is any better than Free Basics. [...] From the response of Wikipedia to your article, it's clear they are not concerned about increasing access. They are concerned about maintaining Wikipedia's popularity and influence. Either you make everything cheaper or you don't have it at all. Otherwise, people find loopholes and it destructs the whole ecosystem. We need to increase access, otherwise you are just trying to keep people hooked on a free service.
TechDirt's Tim Cushing has also weighed in (March 25), saying that "Zero-rating – the nifty trick companies use to edge around net neutrality rules – is being offered to developing countries as a way to provide cheap internet access to their citizens. There's a bit of altruism in the offerings, but there's also a lot of walls surrounding gardens." He agrees with Koebler that there are three possible solutions to the situation in Angola, all of which are unpalatable:
- The Wikimedia Foundation could pull the service from Angola – but this would deprive many impoverished citizens of their only access to the internet.
- Volunteers could start playing whack-a-mole with content and new Wikipedia/Facebook accounts – but this imposes a heavy burden on volunteers and is really "no solution at all".
- Angolan users start to "behave themselves". However, this third solution is actually the worst solution of all, Cushing argues, following Koebler's line of reasoning:
As Koebler explains, this proposed solution is predicated on some terrible assumptions about how people must behave to "earn" internet access privileges.
- "Many on the listserv [i.e. the Wikimedia-l mailing list] are framing Angola's Wikipedia pirates as bad actors who need to be dealt with in some way so that more responsible editors aren't punished for their actions. This line of thinking inherently assumes that what Angola's pirates are doing is bad for Wikipedia and that they must be assimilated to the already regulated norms of Wikipedia's community. If the developing world wants to use our internet, they must play by our rules, the thinking goes."
Playing by the rules – which basically means curbing infringement to appease rights holders – may be a bad thing for Angolans in the long run, even if it seems like a plausible short-term solution. The "loopholes" in these zero-rated services aren't limited to spreading pirated content. They could also serve as handy tools for activism and dissent.
- "Angolan's pirates are learning how to organize online, they're learning how to cover their tracks, they are learning how to direct people toward information and how to hide and share files. Many of these skills are the same ones that would come in handy for a dissident or a protester or an activist. Considering that Angola has had an autocratic leader in power for more than 35 years, well, those are skills that might come in handy one day."
Shutting down dubious uses of the services will only result in greater local control of internet access, which is the last thing the country needs. The fact that people are using a service in ways it was never intended to be used is a feature, not a bug.
The debate is likely to continue, and it seems certain that both Internet activists and intellectual property rights advocates will closely watch the Wikimedia movement's response.
The 3D printer edit war
The edit war at RepRap project, briefly mentioned in last week's "In the media", is the subject of an in-depth report (March 23) in Motherboard by Roisin Kiberd. Conflicts between contributors at the Wikipedia article focused on the fact that much of its lengthy content lacked references to independent secondary sources.
Jytdog, a veteran contributor to discussions at the conflict of interest noticeboard, is quoted at some length in Kiberd's report on the difficulty of editing topics in Wikipedia that people feel passionate about:
Passion is a double-edged sword that way. It drives people to contribute but you only get the fans or the haters, and encyclopedic content goes out the window. [...]
Almost all Wikipedians agree that "advocacy editing" is a really big problem. Advocacy editing is when somebody comes to Wikipedia who is, say, an ardent vegetarian (or meat-eater) and believes eating meat is evil (or awesome), or hates (or loves) some politician or company or product or video game, and adds non-neutral and often unsourced or badly sourced content reflecting whatever their passion is. Advocates tend to behave badly as well.
Jytdog eventually told Kiberd that he would no longer take part in editing the article – as did one of his opponents, CaptainYuge, who declared the effort "a waste of time." Kiberd wondered whether Jytdog had done the right thing in reverting his own changes, which had deleted much unsourced and primary-sourced material. Jytdog responded:
Right or wrong I don't know. What I do know is that I don't much like working on topics where there are mostly low quality sources and active online communities; it just becomes a dramafest.
"Change and turmoil, not stability"
In the Christian Science Monitor, Simon DeDeo examines (March 24) the evolution of Wikipedia's complex social norms, noting "an evolving ecosystem of ideas" marked by many competing agendas, as well as a strong founder effect:
In many cases, the enduring norms were first written years before Wikipedia grew to fame, and when the population was a small fraction of what it would one day become. Just as the foundational precepts of the United States still govern us today and generate much commentary in the form of Supreme Court opinions, Wikipedia is governed by rules that originated among a small minority.
None of this was planned, of course: no super-user wired these networks together, or later pulled them apart. Instead, dynamic patterns emerged from the actions of thousands of individuals, each with their own idiosyncratic beliefs, working with and against each other to define what it meant to be a good Wikipedian.
The history of Wikipedia's culture, he says, is a "fundamentally social affair" whose evolutionary course no one could have predicted, marked by "turmoil and change – not stability".
In brief
- NSFW: Cracked.com pokes fun at some of Wikipedia's explicit sexual illustrations. (Mar. 25)
- Limerick: Irish men's website Joe.ie chronicles some vandalism edits to Limerick Institute of Technology, University of Limerick and Waterford Institute of Technology. (Mar. 24–25)
- Megadeth: Loudwire plays "Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction" with Megadeth star Dave Mustaine. Mustaine apparently had so much to say that the episode is published in two instalments. Guitar Player covers the interview and wonders, "Who's going to make all these corrections on Dave's page?" (Mar. 23)
- Wales in Romania: Romanian English-language business news website actmedia.eu is among many Romanian sites covering Jimmy Wales' recent visit to Romania, describing him as "the genius behind Wikipedia". (Mar. 23)
- Women and Wikipedia: The Link looks at the history of Wikipedia's gender gap. (Mar. 21)
- Monkey selfie appeal: TechDirt and The Daily Dot are among sites reporting that PETA has appealed its loss in the monkey selfie copyright suit. (Mar. 20–21)
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-03-23/Technology report
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-03-23/Essay
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-03-23/Opinion
Lila Tretikov a Young Global Leader; Wikipediocracy blog post sparks indefinite blocks
Lila Tretikov receives Young Global Leader invitation from World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum – best known for its annual meeting of some of the world's top political and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland – has invited outgoing Wikimedia Foundation executive director Lila Tretikov to become one of its Young Global Leaders.
The Young Global Leaders programme was set up in 2004 with the US$1 million of prize money received by World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab from the Dan David Foundation. Described in Businessweek as "the most exclusive private social network in the world", the hundreds of Young Global Leaders have included actor Leonardo DiCaprio, Anderson Cooper, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Contacts between the World Economic Forum and the Wikimedia Foundation date back many years. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales was named a Young Global Leader in 2007 (as was his wife since 2012, Kate Garvey, whom he reportedly met in Davos). In 2008, the World Economic Forum named the Wikimedia Foundation a "technology pioneer", enabling it to send a representative to the Davos meeting (Florence Devouard attended in 2008, Sue Gardner in 2009).
Wales participated in various capacities in Davos over the years, including co-chairmanship of a Middle East forum in 2008, and in 2015 was a winner of the $1 million Dan David Prize. Today, he serves on the Young Global Leaders Foundation board, while WMF board member Guy Kawasaki is an "agenda contributor" at the World Economic Forum. Both Wales and Kawasaki are believed to have been among Tretikov's chief defenders in the recent leadership crisis at the Foundation.
Tretikov's nomination for the Young Global Leaders list would have occurred sometime before June 2015, given the World Economic Forum's nomination deadline for the class of 2016. Selection criteria include age (below 40 at the time of nomination) as well as "a recognized record of extraordinary achievement and a proven track record of substantial leadership experience. Typically, this means 5–15 years of outstanding professional work experience and a clear indication of playing a substantial leadership role for the rest of his or her career." The World Economic Forum list of the Young Global Leaders class of 2016, published March 16, still describes Lila Tretikov as "the Moscow-born head of the Wikimedia Foundation, the world's largest source of free knowledge".
Wikipediocracy blog post leads to indefinite user blocks on multiple Wikimedia projects
A recent blog post (removed, here is the updated version) on Wikipedia criticism site Wikipediocracy has sparked indefinite blocks of a volunteer contributor on multiple Wikimedia projects. The blog post drew attention to the fact that WayneRay, indefinitely blocked from participation in the English Wikipedia by the project's Arbitration Committee in 2012, was still a highly active contributor on Wikimedia Commons, with a history of problematic user interactions.
WayneRay provided unusually complete details of his identity on-wiki, creating and defending his own Wikipedia biography (archive), and maintaining a page with biographical information about himself on Commons (archive) that he linked on his Commons user page. A minor poet, publisher, and cultural figure in London, Ontario, he had garnered local media attention after being charged with child pornography offences and receiving a 23-month jail sentence in 2011. He was reported to have both shared and solicited child pornography online, at one point posing as a 14-year-old girl to obtain more photos.
Since publication of the Wikipediocracy blog post, volunteer administrators on Commons as well as English Wikinews, Wikisource, and Wikiquote have indefinitely blocked WayneRay. The Wikimedia Foundation's Manager of Trust & Safety, James Alexander, told the Signpost that his department is aware of the situation, and that he has been in touch with volunteer administrators on Commons.
An obvious question arising here is why an openly self-identifying user with a documented child pornography conviction was permitted to edit other Wikimedia projects, given his 2012 ArbCom block on the English Wikipedia and problematic user interactions in his edit history. It would make sense for ArbCom to forward information about problematic users to the Wikimedia Foundation, and for the Foundation then to review the relevant accounts' global contributions histories, performing WMF Office bans where appropriate. We put this question to James Alexander, who pointed out the difficulty of doing the job with limited resources:
We took over the child protection cases from ArbCom a little over a year ago or so (though parts of that transition started before that and parts lasted after). We did that at the same time as we were starting to look at the larger issue of Trust & Safety and problematic cases which the community was either overstretched, or unable to deal with for one reason or another (not through fault of their own but because of the legal and privacy complications etc.), similar to what we did when we set up the emergency@ system for threats of harm. Knowing that our bandwidth was already stretched to the maximum, one of the things we did at the time was to hire someone with Trust & Safety experience (Kalliope) to help, but unfortunately we still have significant resource constraints on what we can commit to and we still only have 2 people primarily focused on it (myself and Kalli), with the other 5 members of Support & Safety (previously Community Advocacy) committed to helping with investigations when possible.
Of course, as happens when you open up badly needed channels like that, the previously unmet demand grew enormously once people realized we were available to help. The number of global ban requests or other issues to evaluate has subsequently grown as part of this, requiring us to prioritize it somewhat brutally at times. Child protection, of course, is incredibly high on that prioritization. Other than emergency threats of harm or other highly time sensitive crises, it goes to the top of the list as soon as we get a report. However, the resource issue has prevented us from making any more methodical 'proactive' steps to look into potential cases that have not yet been brought to our attention, although this is undoubtedly something we'd love to be able to do.
In the end, as in most things, the community is still usually the first line of defense. We want to help as much as possible and to continue to increase that help as we gain more bandwidth through new resources and efficiencies. They are often best situated, however, to see when something needs to be looked at, to escalate matters when needed to our attention, and sometimes the best overall first responders (such as for most content related issues).
Ray's Wikipedia biography, which for several years contained a reference to the child pornography conviction – at times edit-warred over, then removed by Herostratus in August 2014 – has been nominated for deletion (the article had previously survived a 2006 deletion request). At the time of this writing, there is a clear consensus for deletion.
Brief notes
- Event ban policy created: The Foundation has created an event ban policy, described as "a set of guidelines and procedures regarding identifying and handling users who are banned from Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) sponsored or funded events, in the interest of maintaining the physical and mental well-being of the participants. This policy, and the suggested processes pursuant to this policy, are applicable to in-person events, taking place in physical spaces." Chapters, projects, user groups and affiliates are encouraged to adopt and adapt this policy when holding in-person events.
- WMF Office desysop: In a rare move, the Foundation temporarily desysopped Commons administrator Denniss for restoring a comment made by a globally banned editor and taking punitive action against another contributor who had repeatedly removed the comment. Denniss may seek admin rights again through a Request for Adminship after thirty days. In a statement posted on the Commons Village Pump, James Alexander said "we will not tolerate sanctions against contributors attempting to enforce a global ban in good faith or of users who edit war or, otherwise, attempt to prevent them from doing so."
- New administrators: The Signpost welcomes the English Wikipedia's newest administrator, Widr.
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-03-23/Serendipity
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-03-23/Op-ed
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-03-23/In focus
Palestine–Israel article 3 case amended
While the Arbitration Committee have been quiet lately and no new cases have been open so far for 2016, we can at least report on decisions made by the committee recently. On 19 March, the committee amended the Palestine–Israel articles 3 case as follows:
Remedy 2 (General Prohibition) is replaced with, "All IP editors, accounts with fewer than 500 edits, and accounts with less than 30 days tenure are prohibited from editing any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab–Israeli conflict. This prohibition may be enforced by reverts, page protections, blocks, the use of pending changes, and appropriate edit filters."
The 500/30 protection sanction has been seen as a controversial form of protection, first being implemented in the GamerGate controversy article. As there has been a slump in activity for the Arbitration Committee, I think that it's best to ask the readers of the report on their take on this sanction: what do you think of the 500/30 protection sanction?
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-03-23/Humour