I am pleased to announce that the Signpost and Wikizine have reached an in-principle agreement that will see Wikizine published as a special Signpost section at the beginning of each month.
Long-time editors may recall that Wikizine used to hold one of the roles the Signpost now fills: that of a Wikimedia movement–wide news outlet. One of the remarkable aspects of Wikizine was that a single editor, Walter, wrote the entire newsletter each week for several years. By 2009, though, he was not able to keep up without help, as no one was willing to carry a significant amount of his burden. Walter warned, rightly, that "only by substantial assistance on a more [than] occasional basis can Wikizine continue."
Wikizine—which had come to be published only infrequently—enjoyed a short revival in late 2009, but appeared only once in 2010. There were six issues in 2011, before an unsuccessful move to revamp the page; only three issues have come out since.
To restart the Wikizine legacy, its new editor, Mono, is working with the Signpost to transform Wikizine into a monthly special report, somewhat analogous to our "Recent research" section. Our current plans are that it will focus on Wikimedia Commons and the GLAM-Wiki movement, starting in April or May.
I am saddened to announce that Crisco 1492, the author of our featured content section, has departed to focus on his real-world studies. Crisco, a Canadian who lives and studies in Indonesia, took over from Tony1 in late 2011, and produced work that we were consistently proud of. The Signpost wishes him well in his future endeavors. Hahc21, an editor of five years' standing, will be taking Crisco's place. Hahc21 serves in a variety of roles in the Wikimedia movement; among these are featured list delegate on the English Wikipedia, coordinator of the Mediation Committee on the Spanish Wikipedia, and member of the Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) Committee.
The arbitration report, which has been dormant for some time, will also see changes. Neotarf has written a report for this week and will share this role with the pre-existing writer, James (M.O.X); but we are still seeking users knowledgeable about the arbitration process who can step in when needed.
During March, three of the Wikimedia Foundation's grantmaking schemes on Meta will reach important crossroads; these will shape how both the editing communities and Wikimedia institutions handle the distribution of donors' money across the movement.
FDC
The volunteer-driven Finance Dissemination Committee (FDC) will be conducting its open-community review of chapter requests worth US$1.2 million, until the end of this month. The WMF had allocated $2.6 million for this round, so the remaining unspent funds (at least $1.4 million) will be moved to the Foundation's "rainy day" fund, independent of the actual recommendations of the committee to the WMF board.
The largest request in this second FDC round has been submitted by Wikimédia France, which has requested $747k after it obtained only about 10% of its previous request of $961k due to acknowledged management problems. A main theme will be the further development of the organization's track record of outreach in the French-speaking world, through the build-up of staff aiding international Wikimedia groups. The discussion on Meta currently centers around organizational changes like the rationales behind the planned increase from 5 to 15 paid employees.
Wikimedia Norway has requested $236k to fund a largely GLAM and institutional outreach-focused plan. To back up these programs, the chapter proposes to hire its first two paid staff and to set up an office in the nation's capital, Oslo. To date, a main topic in the discussion of the application is the amount of money the organization plans to spend on its first employees (huge salaries).
Wikimedia Hong Kong is the first Eastern Asian chapter to submit proposals to the FDC. The chapter requested roughly $212k to fund its first non-project-based annual plan. The organization proposes to hire paid full-time staff for the first time, and is requesting assistance to handle this year's Wikimania, which is partially funded by a separate $42K grant by the WMF. Both topics are debated on the related talk page.
Wikimedia Czech Republic submitted a request to fund $14k for an office in the nation's capital, Prague, travel grants for volunteers, and a person to take care of paperwork. The office plan and how it fits into the strategic alignment are the main topics of conversations on the talk page.
IEG
The IEG, a scheme designed to empower individual and small groups of volunteers to tackle large and time-consuming structural community problems, is getting off the ground in March. The WMF published aggregated results in early March, in which the committee examined a wide thematic range of applications. The ideas ranged from $200 for a Chinese social media account to increase the visibility of Wikimedia in China, to a community-driven $30k outreach effort in Brazil. In this pilot phase, the IEG can distribute up to $100K for seven slots. The WMF will announce its decisions by end of this month, based on both the community review and committee evaluation.
Flow funding
The third scheme currently underway on Meta is an experiment called flow funding (FF). The idea is to empower selected volunteers—called flow funders—to decide decentralized funding requests by other volunteers of up to $2K, to bundle them, and to submit them to the WMF. While having a low global profile to date, the scheme's potential for COI, hands-on methods, and alleged risks of nepotism was the subject of considerable debate on the German Wikipedia. (German-speakers are used to a wide range of very well-financed but more bureaucratic funding opportunities by the three related chapters, in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, on top of the global schemes provided by the WMF on Meta.) The experiment runs until mid-2013; the English Wikipedia component is conducted by West.andrew.
Both the IEG and FF pilots and the FDC scheme will be re-evaluated after their current rounds; the ability to respond to community input in the grantmaking processes will be a key design component. The FDC community-review period runs until end of March, while the IEG projects will enter their next public stage in early April. FF can be perused case by case on the editing projects themselves. The two experimental schemes will not only have to perform well as such but will need to develop profiles distinctive from the two other WMF schemes for small and medium-sized requests, participation grants and the GAC-advisedWikimedia grants program.
WMF clarifies trademark practices for QRpedia and Wikitowns: The foundation's legal team has published its new practices for granting QRpedia and Wikitown projects, like Monmouthpedia, the use of Wikimedia trademarks, in the wake of Wikimedia UK's governance review (see Signpostcoverage). The WMF will keep with past practice in allowing nominative, plain-text uses of the word "Wikipedia", but will refuse permission for the stylized version of "Wikipedia" and the iconic globe logo (both are visible in the top-left corner of this page). Objections were raised in the comments and on the Wikimedia Announcements mailing list to the use of the word "allow" with regards to allowing nominative use, but WMF General Counsel Geoff Brighamstated that "we are trying to cover our bases just in case ... other countries have a narrower scope than U.S. [nominative use] laws."
WMF finance statement: The foundation's mid-year finance statement, covering July 1 to December 31, 2012, has been published.
Image donation: Sweden's Royal Armoury, Skokloster Castle, and The Hallwyl Museum (LSH) has released approximately 40,000 images under open licenses. With the help of Wikimedia Sweden, high-resolution versions of these photos are being published on Commons.
Wikipedia Zero wins award: Wikipedia Zero has won the activism award from SXSW (see also an image of the award).
The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the TuileriesA head-and-shoulders portrait of a Jicarilla Apache man, photographed by Edward Sheriff Curtis circa 1904.
Twelve featured articles were promoted this week:
British military intervention in the Sierra Leone Civil War (nom) by HJ Mitchell. Under the codename Operation Paliser, the United Kingdom intervened militarily in the African nation of Sierra Leone in 2000. Conducted between May and September, the operation aimed to ensure the safe evacuation of foreign citizens out of the country's capital, Freetown, and to end the ongoing civil war.
Kareena Kapoor (nom) by Dr. Blofeld. Kapoor is an Indian actress who has received more than 50 awards. Debuting with "Refugee" in 2000, the daughter of the actors Randhir Kapoor and Babita has performed a wide variety of characters across different film genres; including more than a dozen Bollywood films.
H. C. McNeile (nom) by SchroCat. McNeile (1888–1937) was a British soldier and author. He published a series of war stories under the pen name "Sapper" at the Daily Mail while serving in the First World War. After leaving the army, thrillers became his primary genre. Bulldog Drummond (1920), McNeile's best known work, was the first of a ten-volume series.
Joaquim José Inácio, Viscount of Inhaúma (nom) by Astynax and Lecen. Inácio (1808–1869) was a naval officer, politician and monarchist of the Empire of Brazil. Born in Portugal, he entered Brazilian politics in 1861 as a member of the Conservative Party. During the Paraguayan War, Inácio achieved the rank of admiral and was awarded the noble title of viscount.
Aaliyah (album) (nom) by Dan56. Aaliyah is the third and final studio album by American recording artist Aaliyah. Released under Virgin Records in July 2001, the album received critical acclaim and enjoyed commercial success. Aaliyah died in a plane crash after recording the music video for the third single of the album in the Bahamas.
Hurricane Debbie (1961) (nom) by Cyclonebiskit. Debbie was the most powerful cyclone on record to strike Ireland in September. After originating from a tropical disturbance in Central Africa, the cyclone moved onto the Atlantic Ocean before striking the European country, killing twelve people and causing damages of around $50 million.
Alben W. Barkley (nom) by Acdixon. Barkley (1877–1956) was a lawyer and politician from Kentucky who served in both houses of Congress and as the 35th Vice President of the United States from 1949 to 1953, under the government of President Harry S. Truman.
William Robinson Brown (nom) by Montanabw. Brown (1875–1955), better known as W. R. Brown, was an American corporate officer of the Brown Company of Berlin, New Hampshire. In 1929, he wrote The Horse of the Desert, still considered an authoritative work on the Arabian breed. He served as President of the Arabian Horse Club of America from 1918 until 1939.
Batman: Arkham City (nom) by Darkwarriorblake. Batman: Arkham City is an action-adventure video game developed by Rocksteady Studios and released by Warner Bros. Interactive in 2011. A sequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum, the game focuses on Batman’s attempt to uncover the secret behind Arkham's sinister "Protocol 10", after being incarcerated in Arkham City, a massive super-prison.
Gateshead International Stadium (nom) by Meetthefeebles. A multi-purpose, all-seater arena originally known as the Gateshead Youth Stadium, it was built in 1955. It is the largest arena in the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead, and the sixth-largest in Northeast England.
Death of Jimi Hendrix (nom) by GabeMc. After suffering poor health for several days, American musician Jimi Hendrix died in London on September 18, 1970, aged 27. The post-mortem examination concluded that Hendrix aspirated his own vomit and died of asphyxia while intoxicated with barbiturates. Considered one of the most influential guitarists of the 1960s, Hendrix was interred at Greenwood Cemetery in Renton, Washington.
Push the Button (Sugababes song) (nom) by Till. "Push the Button" is the lead single from British girl group Sugababes' fourth studio album, Taller in More Ways, released on September 26, 2005. Composed by Dallas Austin and the Sugababes, the song was inspired by an infatuation that group member Keisha Buchanan developed with another artist. It was considered one of the best pop singles of the 2000s.
Featured lists
A mother sperm whale and her calf off the coast of Mauritius.
List of awards and nominations received by Scissor Sisters (nom) by Another Believer. American band Scissor Sisters has received eleven awards out of 33 nominations since the group's formation in 2001. Since the release of their first studio album in 2004, the band has collected one Ivor Novello Award and three BRIT Awards, as well as one Grammy Award nomination.
John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (nom) by PresN. An annual award presented by the Center for the Study of Science and Fiction, the prize set up in 1972 is named after one of the most influential early science fiction writers, John W. Campbell, and honours the author of the best science fiction novel released in the preceding calendar year.
The Flashman Papers (nom) by SchroCat. The Flashman Papers are a series of novels and short stories written by George MacDonald Fraser, the first of which was published in 1969. The main theme is the exploits of fictional character Harry Paget Flashman, a British soldier placed in a series of real historical events between 1839 and 1894.
List of international cricket centuries by Garfield Sobers (nom) by Vensatry. Sir Garfield Sobers is a former international cricketer who has scored centuries on 26 occasions. Sobers made his Test debut against Pakistan in 1954, and scored his first century against the same team four years later. As of January 2013, he is fourteenth in the list of all-time century-makers in Test cricket, and third in the equivalent list for the West Indies.
Featured pictures
Eight featured pictures were promoted this week:
A Jicarilla Man, 1904 (nom) created by Edward S. Curtis and nominated by Keraunoscopia. The Jicarilla Apache lived a semi-nomadic existence in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and plains of southern Colorado, northern New Mexico and ranged into the Great Plains starting before 1525 CE.
Napoleon (nom) created by Jacques-Louis David and nominated by Crisco 1492. Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the latter stages of the French Revolution and its associated wars in Europe.
Mother and baby sperm whale (nom) created by Gabriel Barathieu and nominated by Kurzon. The sperm whale is the largest of the toothed whales. It is the only living member of genus Physeter, and one of three extant species in the sperm whale family, along with the pygmy sperm whale and dwarf sperm whale of the genus Kogia.
Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG (nom) created by Stefan Krause and nominated by Purpy Pupple. The Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG is a front-engine, 2-seat luxury grand tourer automobile developed by Mercedes-AMG to replace the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren. The car is the first Mercedes automobile designed in-house by AMG.
Rusty-naped Pitta, female (nom) and Rusty-naped Pitta, male (nom), created and nominated by JJ Harrison. The Rusty-naped Pitta, Pitta oatesi, is a species of bird in the Pittidae family. The species was originally described by amateur ornithologist Allan Octavian Hume in 1790. The bird is found across several Asian nations, inhabiting subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, montane forests and bamboo forests.
Siberian Rubythroat (nom) created and nominated by JJ Harrison. The Siberian Rubythroat (Luscinia calliope) is a small passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family Turdidae, but is now more generally considered to be an Old World flycatcher, Muscicapidae.
There has been little to report from the Arbitration Committee since the December elections, but the case schedule is now starting to pick up speed. There are three open cases. A final decision has been given in the Doncram case.
Hersfold's resignation
Shortly before the Signpost was published, arbitrator Hersfold published his resignation on the Arbitrator's noticeboard, saying in part:
“
It has been an honor serving with my fellow Arbitrators, the Functionaries, and the ArbCom Clerks, and I wish them all the best of luck. I also hope that they receive greater support from the community at large, so that they may better exercise the trust the community has placed in them for the good of the project as a whole; please remember that we are all volunteers working towards the same purpose, and while disagreements may arise, there is always time to stand back and attempt to understand one another.
”
Hersfold elaborated on his reasons for resigning on his talk page, stating that the recent outings of several editors led him to believe that there was an "increased risk of being harassed and outed [for administrators, and] it seems likely that that net will expand to include one or more arbitrators before too much longer, if action is not taken to stop it. I value my privacy and personal safety, and have an obligation to protect my family as well." This is Hersfold's second resignation from the committee, as he also resigned in May 2010.
This case, brought by SarekOfVulcan, involved a user-created script for creating new articles from an external database, subsequent interactions over the created article stubs, and challenges to content added from other databases by other users. The script, created for the National Register of Historic Places WikiProject, uses a database of National Register properties from the National Park Service to generate an infobox and categories for the start of an article.
Arbitrators passed three findings of fact regarding Doncram. 1) Doncram has been "uncivil", has "repeatedly made accusations of harassment or misbehavior", and has "continued to make such statements after dispute resolution fora have concluded otherwise". 2) Doncram has a history of repeatedly creating articles with notability issues. 3) Doncram has move-warred regarding titles. Two proposed remedies regarding Doncram were passed: that he be "placed under a general probation" and that he be "restricted from creating new pages" in article space.
The committee passed a proposed finding of fact regarding SarekOfVulcan: that "SarekOfVulcan has admitted to edit warring with Doncram in order to try to have Doncram blocked for an extended period of time." A proposed remedy was also passed regarding SarekOfVulcan: "For edit warring with Doncram, SarekOfVulcan is strongly admonished to behave with the level of professionalism expected of an administrator." Arbitrators voted 9–5 to desysop SarekOfVulcan, but the motion failed by one vote and the admonishment remedy was passed instead.
A proposal for an interaction ban between SarekOfVulcan and Doncram was enacted. "The question of how substantive the content of a stub must be before it can legitimately be introduced to the mainspace" was remanded to the community.
This case, brought by Mark Arsten, was opened over a dispute over transgenderism topics that began off-wiki. The evidence phase was scheduled to close March 7, 2013, with a proposed decision due to be posted by March 21.
This case, brought by Fram, involves allegations of an ongoing pattern of copyright violations in uploaded files, and in links to copyright-violating off-wiki pages. The case is complicated by the fact that a portion of the evidence has been deleted and can only be viewed by administrators. To address this, a select number of files were restored, with the contents visible via a template, for the duration of the case. A decision was scheduled for March 9, 2013.
This case was brought to the Committee by KillerChihuahua, who alleges the discussion over this American political group has degenerated into incivility. Evidence for the case is due by March 20, 2013, and a decision is scheduled for April 3, 2013.
Other requests and committee action
Monty Hall problem: An amendment request has been made to the committee for removal of discretionary sanctions on Remedy 3.
Oversight-related blocks: The Oversight-related blocks motion was passed by unanimous vote of the entire committee. It states that administrators should not unilaterally reverse an "oversighter block" or a block marked "do not unblock without consulting the oversight team." This has implications for editors with access to suppressed information that other administrators cannot access, as well as for the current motion regarding Kevin, an administrator who performed such an unblock in the recent "outing" controversy. The blocking policy was changed, and there was further discussion on the appropriateness of changing policy to reflect arbitration cases at the policy talk page.
Motions to return Kevin's administrator rights: In the requested case Temporary desysop of Kevin, a motion vote to reinstate Kevin's administrator privileges, in lieu of hearing the full case, failed with a 5–6 vote (6 votes needed to pass). A second motion was proposed adding an admonishment to the reinstatement, which has been enacted.
Motion on Audit Subcommittee: A motion to allow community Audit Subcommittee (AUSC) appointees who did not hold advanced permissions prior to their term may apply to retain Checkuser and/or Oversight tools was enacted.
Motion on CheckUser/Oversight and inactivity: The committee "reaffirmed" the current procedures along with renaming them from "Advanced permissions and inactivity" to "CheckUser/Oversight permissions and inactivity".
Motion on removal of CheckUser/Oversight for reasons other than inactivity (Level II procedures): A motion for changing the requirements for removal of advanced tools was not enacted.
Clarification request: Climate change: A clarification request of the climate change case was filed by NewsAndEventsGuy, who requests clarification of who can post arbitration enforcement notices to talk pages and add to the notifications, blocks, bans, and sanctions log.
Clarification request: Discretionary sanctions appeals procedure: A request to clarify the appeal process for discretionary sanctions warnings was filed by Sandstein
What motivated you to join WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court Cases? Do you have any educational or professional experience in law?
BD2412: I am an attorney, and like most attorneys I was inundated with Supreme Court cases in law school. In fact, I started writing about these cases because I had to read them and write summaries about them anyway, so I figured, why not share the fruits of my efforts with the world?
agradman: Ditto to what BD2412 said, and let me add: Wikipedia had the potential to be a great resource for law students, as a study guide. When you're a law student, you get assigned a casebook for each class. The book contains the text of many cases followed by some material added by the editors – bits of scholarship, questions for class discussion, etc. Many students have trouble learning from these. They are very dry and a little opaque. And so students go out and buy study guides (which are called hornbooks in our field). Well, thanks to the hard work of the people from this Wikiproject (and from WP:Law, I think Wikipedia is now at the point where people don't need to buy hornbooks anymore. This isn't just a matter of saving money. It means that students will be putting their own notes online, and sharing with others. That's a great contribution to law school, which has famously been a place where people are very competitive and do not like to share or collaborate.
Do you tend to focus on historical cases or recent decisions? Are some time periods better covered than others? What can be done to fill holes in Wikipedia's coverage?
BD2412: I began with cases that were covered in my classes, which tended to be a mix of old and new.
agradman: Ditto to what BD2412 said. The people who contribute to these cases are by and large law students (as I was, two years ago, when I made the bulk of my contributions), and so I think you will see coverage following the curriculum of law school classes. I would say that we've gotten to the point now where the coverage is pretty thorough in that regard. See Lists_of_United_States_Supreme_Court_cases_by_volume.
Do articles go through significant changes when a case moves from lower courts to the Supreme Court? How does the project handle existing articles about cases that end up being grouped together by the Supreme Court?
BD2412: I think we generally don't write articles on cases until they reach the Supreme Court. One interesting facet of Supreme Court jurisprudence is that it is rare for cases that receive substantial attention at the trial court level – often criminal cases involving celebrities or bizarre crimes – to reach that level of appeal.
agradman: Ditto what BD2412 said. This sometimes happens [i.e., WP having an article for a case BEFORE it reaches the supreme court], but I can only think of one example offhand – Morse v. Frederick, to which I was a contributor. If you look at my answer to the next question, you will see why in my opinion this can be a headache and it is NOT worth attempting to give coverage to the various lower courts. True, it may be that the lower court opinions describe additional facts than the Supreme Court does, and that this extra info makes for a richer wikipedia article, but the thing is, lawyers are not interested in these details about what ACTUALLY happened. We are interested in what the Supreme Court thought was IMPORTANT ENOUGH to mention as a fact that supported its opinion. Maybe that separates us from the general public.
The decisions released by the Supreme Court justices are often very complicated. How do the project's members sort it all out and simplify it for the average reader? How are concurring and dissenting opinions treated?
BD2412: Ideally, concurring and dissenting opinions should be given some sectional treatment in the article.
agradman: Regarding the "average reader" question, I must be honest and say we don't tend to care. Any legal case is going to assume that the reader understands a large number of abstract concepts (jurisdiction, stage of review, etc), and since any given case is only to be "about" one or two of those concepts, it is going to make things very messy to have to explain the other concepts within the article about the case. So I don't know what to say to the average reader! As far as concurrences and dissents, those are treated straighforwardly – you just say what they say – it is not really an issue that we have trouble with, example Roe v Wade. In my opinion, what is actually harder to treat is the description of everything within the case that is NOT the legal opinion of the judge. This include the judge's description of the facts of the case, his description of the lower courts' opinions, etc. Let me give you a very simple example: Roe v. Wade. (Another example might be Morse v. Frederick.) If you read the Roe article, you might think that the text of the court's decision picks up with the stuff under the heading, "Supreme Court decision". In fact, the text of the court's decision also discusses the material that appears in the earlier sections of the WP article, under the "Background" and "Before the Supreme Court" headings. It is just a typical thing in judicial opinions that, before stating the "opinion", the court will give some of the prior history of the case. You may think this is pedantic of me to mention, but here is the challenge: we are writing a Wikipedia article about a document (in this example, the case of Roe v. Wade), but we are also using that document as our source for the facts described within that document (in this example, the prior history of Roe v. Wade before it reached the supreme court). In my opinion, WP articles about legal opinions are the only place on WP where we can get away with that sort of shenanigan. It is probably contrary to WP policies, but god save us if someone should put their foot down and tell us we can't do that anymore – we'd never get any work done. Technically, we could find other sources – such a the opinions of the lower courts – but within the legal community those sources tend to be deprecated in comparison to the text of the Supreme Court opinion. No one wants to hear what they say. The fact is, even if the supreme court gets it wrong, we care more about what they THOUGHT the facts were than what the facts ACTUALLY were. And that is a distinction that is way too much trouble to make in our WP articles.
Does your project's work ever overlap with the WikiProjects covering politics, business, or social issues? Is there much cooperation with those other projects? What can be done to improve communication and coordination between WikiProjects?
agradman: Almost all of us also belong to WP:Law. Obviously that project also contains lawyers from non-US. But we all work together very well, and I think the talk page at WP:Law tends to be a little more active.
Considering the Supreme Court's rules regarding photographing and recording, how are articles about Supreme Court cases illustrated? What kinds of images could be added to these articles?
BD2412: This depends on the kind of case. For patent cases, images of the technology involved; criminal procedure cases, images of the conduct under review (pat-down searches, surveillance, shackling, and so forth).
agradman: I must confess, as a lawyer I don't give much thought to the question of improving our legal coverage for the sake of non-legal audiences (which I understand is the gist of your question). Appropriate images I think are going to be hard to come by. However, as a general rule, you can always insert a photo of the judge who wrote the case.
Are there any important cases coming up soon that could use some attention? How can editors who do not have formal training in law contribute to the articles about these cases?
BD2412: There are always important cases coming up, but perhaps the most important thing editors can do is to write about the decisions that are less high profile.
agradman: I think that by and large, the heavy lifting in these article needs to be done by legally trained people. However, offhand I suppose that anyone, regardless of their training, could create stubs for old supreme court cases, relying on the redlinks at Lists of United States Supreme Court cases by volume. I believe that our wikiproject has templates for creating new articles. As far as content, you can get some minimal content for the article using Google Scholar (i.e., if you see how a case is cited in OTHER cases, that will often contain a summary of the case.)
Anything else you'd like to add?
agradman: A shout-out needs to go to MZMcBride, who is responsible for putting together the Lists of United States Supreme Court cases by volume. He had great foresight for putting this together a long time ago. It became an index to our project as well as a way for us to assess our own progress. I think that readers of the Signpost article should be encouraged to browse through this. Also, MZMcBride may be able to calculate an estimate of the percentage of these articles that have been written to date, which will be an interesting statistic for the article.
Next week, we'll compose a delightful report. Until then, check out the classics in the archive.
Despite considerable community engagement – including this screencast walkthrough of the tool – version 5 of the Article Feedback tool is now all but dead, on the English Wikipedia at least.
The Wikimedia Foundation this week aborted a plan that would have seen version 5 of the Article Feedback tool (AFTv5) rolled out to all English Wikipedia articles (Editor-Engagement mailing list). As a result of fairly damning community feedback (see previous Signpost coverage), the extension, which adds a box to the bottom of articles asking for comments, will now only appear when the article has been added to a certain category. According to a revised release plan, the tool will continue to receive updates, though the focus will be on making it available to other wikis.
Together with last month's "undeployment" of the Moodbar extension and its associated Feedback dashboard, the move marks the end of the line for two of 2011's bigger projects. "As an experiment, Moodbar was a fair success", wrote the WMF's Brandon Harris on 6 February, "but we have come to the conclusion that it will require a fair chunk of development work (on the Feedback Dashboard side) to make it fully usable as a mechanism for new user engagement... [which will only now be as] part of the upcoming Flow initiative".
Despite the suggestion of a future revival of the Moodbar at a later date, the outcomes can only be demoralising from a developer standpoint: the Article Feedback tool was ultimately rejected despite an incredibly energetic community engagement campaign, and the Moodbar simply never took off, despite filling an even more obvious need. It would be tempting, then, to think that the English Wikipedia community rejects those tools that are seen to create burdens and embraces those that are seen to empower (the VisualEditor, Lua, Wikidata). However, the success of the Teahouse points to the dangers of drawing overhasty conclusions on this point. In any case, with AFTv5 almost entirely switched off, there will be much for WMF team leaders to ponder over the coming weeks.
Code review process imperfect but stable
Median code review times for staff and non-staff compared (lower is better), May 2012 to February 2013. The spike to the right hand side is the Christmas/New Year holiday.
In late September, the Signpostpublished an independent analysis of code review times, an analysis it repeated in November. To the 23,900 changesets analysed the first time and 9,000 added in the revised edition, a further 20,000 have since been added. Across those 51,380 changesets, developers (human and bot) have contributed some 73,000 patchsets and 167,000 reviews. This report is designed to supersede the preceding analysis, bringing the analysis up-to-date in time for the first anniversary of the Git switchover. The methodology remains the same, though the list of WMF deployed extensions has been updated and changing Gerrit practice has required a slight revision to some figures; interested users should consult the preceding reports. As with all data, the possibility for error is always present, though the figures presented are robust at the margins.
The undeniable conclusion is that code review times have stabilised at a good but far from perfect equilibrium. The headline figure – median review time for a proposed change to WMF-deployed code – only crept up slightly after October's low of 2 hours, 20 minutes, reaching 3 hours, 29 minutes in January. Over the same period, the 75th percentile was unchanged at approximately 22 hours. Early indications for February suggest no great shift. Fears expressed a year ago that code review would grind to a halt once a pre-review system was brought in appear, then, to be unfounded, at least in aggregate terms.
Unfortunately, however, the composition of those aggregate times is also stable: staff get their patches reviewed 2 to 3 times quicker than volunteers (illustrated right). Even if staff write smaller patches – and there is no particular reason to think that they do – that multiple seems stubbornly high. All of the top five most prolific all-time first-reviewers for core code are staff; between them, they have provided 40% of the first-reviews over the last 12 months, though that figure is tracking downwards at a healthy rate. In total, staff have provided ~70% of first reviews for core code – also tracking downwards – a percentage which rises to ~80% if WMF-deployed extensions are also included (the all-time top 19 reviewers for such extensions all being staff). Thus, staff still do more of the reviewing and get their own code reviewed quicker: but at least more staff are now becoming proficient reviewers.
In brief
Not all fixes may have gone live to WMF sites at the time of writing; some may not be scheduled to go live for several weeks.
The new full page content translation interfaceTranslation interface tweaked: The Wikimedia Foundation's Language Engineering team has revealed another iteration of the translation interface. Developed during a recent sprint, the collection of UI tweaks presented, each of which has been tested on different languages, is intended to make translation easier. The team is planning additional features to be deployed, including a dedicated proofread view.
Parsoid: challenges and design decisions: In a comprehensive blog post, WMF developer Gabriel Wicke rounded up his team's progress on Parsoid, the new parser that will ultimately power the still-in-development VisualEditor. Wicke, attempting to answer the question "why has this not been done before", lists several technical challenges (foreseen and unforeseen) that have held back progress on the project.
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