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Volume 4, Issue 4 21 January 2008 About the Signpost
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Special: 2007 in Review, Part II New parser preprocessor to be introduced
Commons Picture of the Year contest in final round WikiWorld comic: "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo"
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SPV

Special: 2007 in Review, Part II

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By Ral315 and Staff
See also Part I.

Last month marked the end of 2007, and the end of the biggest year (and perhaps the most controversial year) that Wikipedia has seen. Over the last year, the Wikimedia Foundation's reach and influence grew, both through the Board and the office. Along the way, Wikipedia's reliability was examined, organizations were disbanded, and a death was "predicted" on Wikipedia in an "awful coincidence". This week, the Wikipedia Signpost continues to take a look back at the year that was 2007 in Wikipedia.

Chris Benoit

In perhaps the most notable vandalism incident in Wikipedia's history, an anonymous editor edited the page of wrestler Chris Benoit to state that his wife had died, nearly fourteen hours before the bodies of Benoit and his wife and son were found.[1] The edit in question, on Chris Benoit, indicated that he had missed an event on Saturday because of the death of his wife, Nancy Benoit. The edit was made just after midnight on June 25th, between thirteen and fourteen hours before the deaths were discovered by Atlanta Police in Fayetteville, an Atlanta suburb.

The vandalism received much attention in the press, with Wikinews reporting the story first, after it was mentioned by Lid on the Administrators' noticeboard. Fox News then carried the story, copying part of the story verbatim from the Wikinews site, and citing it to "Wikipedia.org". As a result of the widespread coverage and speculation, investigators announced that they were going to be looking into possible connections between text messages that Benoit sent to his coworkers and friends, and the edit to Wikipedia.[2] News talk shows such as Bill O'Reilly (with guest Geraldo Rivera) made suppositions on their show, with Rivera saying it was "wildly improbable", and an "unthinkable coincidence" that the unidentified editor would get it right without knowing the truth. Greta Van Susteren suggested that the post might indicate that someone else was on site before the police were, and the existence of the posting opened up the possibility of a 'triple murder'.[3] John Gibson referred to the edits as "a brand new Wikipedia shocker", and "spooky".[3] Nancy Grace and her guests suggested it was possible that Benoit may even have made the edit himself, and discussed the possibility that he told someone who then posted it, instead of reporting it to authorities.[4]

On the 29th, in the wake of the media coverage, a post was made to the talk post of Wikinews coverage of the Wikipedia posting. This post, coming from the same Stamford IP as the initial post on the Benoit page, declared, "Last weekend, I had heard about Chris Benoit no showing ... because of a family emergency, and I had heard rumors about why that was. I was reading rumors and speculation about this matter online, and one of them included that his wife may have passed away, and I did the wrong thing by posting it on wikipedia to spite (sic) there being no evidence." Further acknowledging the issues that were brought up, he admitted "I feel terrible about the mainstream coverage this has received...hearing about my message becoming a huge part of the Benoit slayings made me feel terrible as everyone believes that it is connected to the tragedy, but it was just an awful coincidence."

He added, "Like I said it was just a major coincidence, and I will never vandalize anything on wikipedia or post wrongful information."

Elections

This year, major elections were held for the Board of Trustees, the Arbitration Committee, and for Stewards.

The 2007 Board of Trustees elections were held in June and July 2007. The elections were the first to be held on an outside server (that of Software in the Public Interest), after a leak in the 2006 elections generated controversy.[5] With three seats up for grabs, incumbents Erik Möller and Kat Walsh finished first and second, respectively, with Frieda Brioschi edging out incumbent Oscar van Dillen by just 20 votes for the final spot.

First announced in the Signpost, Jimbo Wales selected six new arbitrators in late December:

For the 2007 ArbCom elections, I am making the following appointments and shifts:

This fills the 5 vacancies in Tranche Alpha.

Then I am removing Flcelloguy from Tranche Gamma for inactivity, with the understanding that if he chooses to return to active service, he may claim a (perhaps temporary) expansion seat in Tranche Gamma. This is intended to be the same situation as Mindspillage and Filiocht have in Tranche Beta.

Into Flcelloguy's seat, I am moving FloNight. This effectively extends her term by 1 year, moving her from Tranche Beta to Tranche Gamma.

And then finally I am appointing Thebainer into FloNight's old seat in Tranche Beta. This unfortunately gives him only a 1 year term, but he did come in 6th.

Finally, I want to announce a desire that the ArbCom should institute some informal notions of a required level of activity, and that I will gladly act upon the advice and consent of the ArbCom at mid-term to make replacement appointments (June-ish - July-ish) for any Arbs who unfortunately have found themselves unable to live up to the time commitments of the position.

I will gladly leave the choice of those mid-term appointments up to the Arbcom (or, at their desire, make the tough decision myself), but will have a strong preference at that time for appointments (based on the election results) from this list of runner-ups: Raul654, Rebecca, Manning Bartlett, Giano II, David Fuchs, Shell Kinney, MastCell.

I am particularly interested that the community work to heal what appears to me to be perceived rifts between various factions, and encourage everyone to work within our existing frameworks and institutions for positive change with a minimum of drama. We are all here to build an encyclopedia and should understand that there are very often complex judgment calls in which we may not personally agree with every result - our first obligation is to pay attention to making sure that our _processes_ are as just, open, participatory, and transparent as possible consistent with our mission.[6]

Also in late December, new stewards were elected; in all, twelve users were selected for stewardship: Spacebirdy, Jusjih, .anaconda, Dungodung, Wpedzich, Thogo, Lar, Zirland, Millosh, Andre Engels, DerHexer, and Nick1915.[7]

Next week

Next week, the Signpost's 2007 in review continues, with more Foundation news, technical features, organizations for deletion, bureaucracy, private correspondence, corporate editing, and Signpost interviews yet to come.

Links/references

  1. ^ Thespian. "IP unwittingly predicts death: 'Awful coincidence'", 2 July, 2007.
  2. ^ Authorities Probe Benoit Wikipedia Entry
  3. ^ a b Lexis-Nexis Transcript: SHOW: THE BIG STORY WITH JOHN GIBSON 5:00 PM EST
  4. ^ Nancy Grace Transcript: Aired June 28, 2007 - 20:00:00 ET
  5. ^ Michael Snow. "Leak last year likely to produce changes for handling next board election", 9 April, 2007.
  6. ^ Ral315 (quote by Jimbo Wales). "Wales appoints six arbitrators", 26 December, 2007.
  7. ^ Ral315. "News and notes: Steward elections complete, awaiting results", 26 December, 2007.


SPV

New parser preprocessor to be introduced

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By ais523

On 24 January, a new preprocessor will be introduced that substantially changes the code that is used to parse many sorts of wikimarkup, in particular templates. This will fix a large number of bugs, and change the meaning of certain syntax. The message announcing this change is available here; a longer description is available at m:Migration to the new preprocessor, including a description of which of the changes are and are not negotiable.

The preprocessor is part of the parser that handles certain constructs that are handled before the other constructs on the page are parsed, including section edit links, transclusions, and comments. At present, all the pages run on the old preprocessor by default; but as "[a]ll known bugs in the new preprocessor have been fixed" it is now available as an alternative for testing purposes. It is known that some templates will cause problems with the new preprocessor (in particular, {{self}} has been singled out as a template known to have problems); therefore, the community's help has been requested to find uses of markup that differs between the two preprocessors and to fix it to be more 'correct'.

There are several categories of changes made by the new preprocessor; most of them fix bugs in one way or another, but some are due to differences between the way the two preprocessors operate:

  • There have been many changes to the way that section edit links work, so that they work in a more logical manner. The basic rule is that with the new preprocessor, only headers formed using the usual ==syntax== will create a section edit link, or start/end a section, and even then only if they are the only markup on the line (so comments should no longer be placed on the same line as a section header). (<h2>-style headers will still appear in the TOC, but will not count as a section break for section editing purposes.) Sections transcluded from templates will still be editable if the ==syntax== is used in the template (this provides a way to choose whether or not transcluded sections are editable), but the section edit links will contain the prefix T- rather than just being numbers.
  • The way that <!--comments--> are handled has also changed. It's now possible to comment out <noinclude> or <includeonly>, and comments will only swallow up line breaks before and after them (meaning that newline-comment-newline becomes one newline not two) if there is only one comment on the line.
  • There have been several changes to the way that template parameters are handled, most notably to fix bug 5678. This bug has affected many templates in the past, forcing workarounds to be used (for instance, this happened in the code in the uw- templates for removing excess code after substing):
    • The markup for specifying a template parameter is, as it always was, parameter=value. However, this markup cannot now be produced as a template output and reparsed as template input.
    • The way that errors are handled in parser functions such as #expr: has remained the same, but error codes are no longer reliably caught by #switch:. A new parser function #iferror: has been added to detect if an error has been produced.
    • The use of {{!}} has changed to some extent. It's now no longer possible to use it as a parameter separator, although its other uses stay correct.
    • Some templates relied on bug 5678 to work; as the bug has been fixed, those templates will no longer work.
    • Certain constructs which were dubious originally (such as putting a parser function inside an html tag) now act in a different manner, normally due to expanding the parser function and tag in a different order.
    • Infinite loops are now detected in a different way, so looping code (a template that transcludes itself) may act differently due to the limits being hit.

One notable advantage to the new preprocessor is that branches of a parser function that are not used (such as the b in {{#if:1|a|b}}) are no longer expanded, resulting in lower pre-expand include values and reducing the length of time the server needs to parse such constructs.

Users are encouraged to test the new preprocessor before it goes live; there are two ways to do this. First, appending the option ?timtest=newpp (or &timtest=newpp if using /w/index.php rather than /wiki) to a page's URL will cause it to be rendered with the new rather than the old preprocessor. It is also possible to use Special:ParserDiffTest to check the difference between using the old and the new preprocessor on a page, using either subpage syntax or by entering some wikitext directly. Such testing will help to ensure that the change to the new preprocessor does not break large parts of the wiki when it finally goes live.


SPV

Commons Picture of the Year contest in final round

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By Ral315

The Commons Picture of the Year competition for 2007 has reached its final round, which closes on January 24. The 28 finalists can be seen below:

This year is the first that the voting is taking place outside the Commons; custom software was written by Bryan, allowing the vote to be held on the Wikimedia Toolserver. Voting via the Wikimedia Toolserver avoids edit conflicts, and allows users to make all their choices much more quickly. Information about the voting method and how to get a voting token is at Commons:Picture of the Year/2007/Voting. Results will not be made public until the end of voting, at which time the entire database of all votes (without the names of the individual users who made each vote) will be released for public inspection.


SPV

WikiWorld comic: "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo"

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By Greg Williams

NB: WikiWorld has ceased its weekly schedule, but will continue to run occasional new comics, as well as "classic" previously-published comics. This rerun is from March 26, 2007.

This week's WikiWorld comic uses text from "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo", "Homonym" and "Homophone". The comic is released under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 license for use on Wikipedia and elsewhere.


SPV

News and notes

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By Ral315

More recordings to be uploaded, WikiProject formed

This week, Raul654 received permission to upload Musopen's entire collection of freely-licensed full-length recordings of various classical pieces. In all, 137 pieces were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. In order to encourage the release of more freely-licensed works, WikiProject Free music has been formed.

Briefly

  • On a humorous note, a student found to be vandalizing Wikipedia while in school was, as part of his punishment, made to type an apology to Wikipedians and the school technology department on a Royal Typewriter, because he had been banned from using school computers; the apology was scanned and uploaded to Wikipedia.
  • The Catalan Wikipedia has reached 100,000 articles.
  • The Dutch Wikipedia has reached 400,000 articles.
  • The Persian Wikiquote has reached 500 articles.


SPV

In the news

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By Enochlau

Not white bread

Reference books? Give me Wikipedia - In response to a professor calling Internet sources "white bread" (see archived story), the author of this article states that the notion that the Internet is eroding our research skills echoes the past mantra that the lower classes should not be taught to read. He argues that the professor is blaming the messenger and not the message, and the problems that are blamed on the Internet have always plagued students: the way that their work is marked may be reinforcing that using predigested material is acceptable. The author questions the assumption that because something is bound in book format, it is therefore more reliable.

"Party boy" article deleted

Wikipedia rejects Corey entry - Melbourne teenager Corey Delaney had a brief moment of fame on Wikipedia, but his article was deleted soon after it was created. Delaney, who held a wild party at his parents' home and attracted international media attention, was deemed not to meet Wikipedia's guidelines for inclusion; the individual in question is only notable for one event. While some argued that the case was notable because it may result in changes to local laws or policies, others believed that it was unfair to create a Wikipedia article on a 16-year-old who may later regret it and that Wikipedia is not a tabloid newspaper.

Other mentions

Other recent mentions in the online press include:


SPV

Features and admins

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By Michael Snow

Administrators

Six users were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: John Carter (nom), Sarcasticidealist (nom), Keeper76 (nom), Sephiroth BCR (nom), Islander (nom), and Victuallers (nom).

Bots

Four bots or bot tasks were approved to begin operating this week: JJBot (task request), Muro_Bot (task request), Alaibot (task request), and MercuryBot (task request).

Seventeen articles were promoted to featured status last week: David Lovering (nom), Jim Bowie (nom), Józef Piłsudski (nom), Exmoor (nom), Archie Jackson (nom), Wormshill (nom), Edgar Allan Poe (nom), Metallica (nom), 1994 Black Hawk shootdown incident (nom), Western Chalukya architecture (nom), William Gibson (nom), Stretford (nom), Analytical Review (nom), Ununoctium (nom), Vampire (nom), I Don't Remember (nom), and Andean Condor (nom).

Four lists were promoted to featured status last week: List of Birmingham City F.C. players (nom), List of Meerkat Manor episodes (nom), List of Night Wizard episodes (nom), and List of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees (nom).

Four portals were featured last week: Portal:Television (nom), Portal:England (nom), Portal:Iceland (nom), and Portal:Amusement parks (nom).

No topics or sounds were featured last week.

The following featured articles were displayed last week on the Main Page as Today's featured article: Reign in Blood, Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act, John Day (printer), SR Merchant Navy Class, Tuck School of Business, Jack Sheppard, and Bruno Maddox.

The following featured pictures were displayed last week on the Main Page as picture of the day: Japanese garden, Eastern Screech Owl, Fuel dumping, Vitruvian Man, Vibrating beam, Iapetus, and World Trade Center complex aftermath.

Six pictures were promoted to featured status last week and are shown below.


SPV

Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

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By ais523

This is a summary of recent technology and site configuration changes that affect the English Wikipedia. Note that not all changes described here are necessarily live as of press time; the English Wikipedia is currently running version 1.44.0-wmf.8 (f08e6b3), and changes to the software with a version number higher than that will not yet be active. Configuration changes and changes to interface messages, however, become active immediately.

Fixed bugs

  • Using Special:Userrights no longer creates a log entry logging no changes if no rights changes were made using the page. (r29756, bug 12614)
  • Special:Linksearch is now again capable of showing more than 50 results (the links to page through the results had previously been removed by mistake). (r29766, bug 12631)
  • Imagemaps and {{#ifexist:}} now no longer put interwiki links in the what-links-here of the page with the same name on the project where the imagemap or ifexist is used. (r29834, bug 12651)

New features

  • Three more JavaScript variables are now available to scripts and bots in the source of a page: wgVersion (the version of MediaWiki being used), wgEnableAPI and wgEnableWriteAPI (whether the API and write API are available). (r29757, bugs 12536 and 12622)
  • Several more variables are now available for automatic substitution in rollback summaries: (r29794, bug 12585)
    • $3: revid of the revision reverted to
    • $4: timestamp of the revision reverted to
    • $5: revid of the revision reverted from
    • $6: timestamp of the revision reverted from
  • Redirects now work in the Image: namespace, if a particular configuration option is enabled. It is currently disabled on Wikimedia projects, but may eventually be enabled when the feature is improved. (r29858 and r29870, bug 4470)

Other technology news

  • There was another attempt to delete Wikipedia:Sandbox at about 22:30 UTC on 16 January, causing a database lock for nearly an hour; as a result, limits were placed on the ability of administrators to delete pages with large histories. (The relevant server admin log entry is: 22:30ish brion: someone tried to delete sandbox on en.wikipedia, leading to various DB error warnings (transactions full) and breakage of most editing for nearly an hour. Have hacked in a 5000-revision limit on deletions, will prettify it shortly.) There was also a thread on the technical village pump about it. Most of the revisions in the Sandbox have now been moved elsewhere, making it again possible for administrators to delete it. If a revision needs to be deleted from a page with a large history, and it meets the Oversight policy, the correct course of action is to contact an oversight user.
  • A change to the preprocessor is scheduled for 24 January, which will cause several changes to the way that template and section edit markup works, and fix several bugs (see related story).

Ongoing news

  • Internationalisation has been continuing as normal; help is always appreciated! See mw:Localisation statistics for how complete the translations of languages you know are, and post any updates to bugzilla or use Betawiki.


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