Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-02-16/SPV

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Volume 5, Issue 7	16 February 2009	About the Signpost

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From the editor — A new leaf

Commons Picture of the Year
Picture of the Year 2008 begins voting

News and notes
Flagged Revisions, historical image discovery, and more

In the news
Political tiff, error repeated in press, predictions of doom

Dispatches
How busy was 2008?

WikiProject report
WikiProject Gaelic games

Discussion report
Discussion Reports And Miscellaneous Articulations

Features and admins
Approved this week

Technology report
Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

Arbitration report
The Report on Lengthy Litigation


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SPV

A new leaf

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By Sage Ross

This week, you'll notice several changes in the Signpost. Most significantly, Ral315 is ending his tenure as editor-in-chief. Ral315 managed the Signpost from September 2005 through December 2008, and was the driving force in keeping it up-to-date and comprehensive, enforcing an appropriate tone, and defining the paper's relationship to the community. On behalf of the many Wikipedians who have contributed to the Signpost during his tenure, I'd like to extend our deep thanks to Ral315 for all his hard work. I'm going to do my best to maintain the high standards Ral315, and Michael Snow before that, have set for the Signpost.

We're debuting a new feature that we hope to publish regularly: the Discussion report, a summary of the most significant ongoing discussions and polls of community-wide relevance. We welcome suggestions on how this feature could be improved, as well as tips on important discussions that slip through the cracks, or take place on other wikis but are still relevant to this community.

We also hope to improve our general coverage of other Wikimedia projects. Look for more news from other communities in future editions of "News and notes"—and as always, we depend on your tips and suggestions.

Finally, we are rolling out a new look for the Signpost, spearheaded by Pretzels. We will be tweaking the design over the next week or so, and we invite readers' input and bug reports on the Signpost talk page. We also welcome any suggestions readers have for improving the Signpost more generally.

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Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year Awards begins first round of voting

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By Shoemaker's Holiday

On 12 February, the third annual Picture of the Year Awards at Wikimedia Commons began the first round of voting, which will last until 26 February. All editors with at least 200 edits before 1 January 2009 are eligible to vote.

Picture of the Year is a contest that seeks to celebrate the best content that has gone through Commons' Featured Picture process in the previous year. Begun by Alvesgaspar in late 2006, Picture of the Year has become a much-beloved tradition throughout Wikimedia projects. For 2008 there are 501 new Featured Pictures, compared to 514 in 2007 and 321 in 2006.

A few changes have been made this year, due to various problems that left no-one in the committee able to pull the project together. A new committee stepped in, and a simplified voting scheme - not using the anonymous, automated vote-counting of previous years - has been implemented. To both celebrate the various types of content that go into featured pictures, and to allow voting to be tallied more easily, awards will be given in a variety of categories this year, and the top 10% of each category will go on to compete for the overall Picture of the Year award.

Voters are allowed to vote for as many images as they like, and are encouraged to vote in as many of the award categories as they feel able to judge. Voting is done simply by going to the gallery, choosing the images that you like best, clicking on the "Vote" button below those images, and adding your name to the list of votes for that image.

The final round of voting will begin in early March, once all the votes from the previous round have been tallied and confirmed.

Winners in previous years

2006

1st place: Aurora Borealis, by United States Air Force employee Senior Airman Joshua Strang (public domain)
2nd place: Homeless man in Paris, by Eric Pouhier (CC-BY-SA-2.5)
3rd place (tied): Blue Jay bird, by Mdf (GFDL)
3rd place (tied): Hoverflies mating, by Fir0002 (GFDL)

2007

1st place: Broadway Tower in Cotswolds, England, by Newton2 (CC-BY-2.5)
2nd place: New York City at night, photographed using the HDR technique, by Paulo Barcellos Jr. (CC-BY-SA-2.0)
3rd place: Red Squirrel with pronounced winter ear tufts in the Hofgarten in Düsseldorf, by Ray eye (CC-BY-SA-2.0-DE)

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Flagged Revisions, historical image discovery, and more

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By Phoebe and Sage Ross

Update on German Wikipedia Flagged Revisions

Image restoration leads to new discovery

In the course of restoring a public domain photograph of the aftermath of the Wounded Knee Massacre—one of many high-quality scans freely available from the United States Library of Congress website—Wikipedian Durova discovered something that had gone unnoticed by curators: four dead bodies, barely visible before restoration, in the foreground of the image. The Library of Congress staff is updating their records to reflect the discovery. Durova reports their reply:

“

Upon viewing the high-res TIFF file we made of the file, the human remains are quite visible, indeed. Thank you very much for contacting us regarding this image, and for your interest in our collections. You can imagine that among a collection of 14 million items here, there are a lot of secrets waiting to be uncovered!

”

Unrestored version: mislabeled scattered debris of camp in Library of Congress bibliographic notes.
Restored version: four human remains in foreground partially wrapped in blankets.
Detail from restored version: a face in profile, hand at right.

CSD:T1 repealed

One of the Criteria for Speedy Deletion, T1, has been recently repealed. The T1 criterion was for speedy deletion of "Templates in Template: namespace that are divisive and inflammatory." The T1 criterion has a long and interesting history related to the "userbox wars" of 2006; the criterion was added in the wake of this debate and was used for deleting several userboxes, though it continued to be controversial. Today, templates for deletion have a separate deletion page (TFD); templates may be nominated there for deletion.

Recent Changes Camp

RecentChangesCamp is being planned for February 20 – 22 in Portland, Oregon. The conference is an unconference focused on wikis, including wiki technology and communities. The conference has been an annual event since 2006; it is hosted by various members of the wiki community. Along with Wikimania and WikiSym, it is one of three ongoing annual wiki conferences. Everyone in a wiki community or who is interested in wikis is welcome to attend the event. To find out more, visit the RecentChangesCamp wiki.

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Political tiff, error repeated in press, predictions of doom

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By Cryptic C62 and Sage Ross

UK Conservative Party edits Wikipedia entry to support leader's statements

On Wednesday, February 11, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, clashed over the age at which the Renaissance painter Titian died. Brown claimed he was 90, Cameron later claimed that he was 86. Within minutes, a user editing under the IP 194.203.158.97, which is registered to the British Conservative Party, changed Titian's year of death from 1576 to 1572 to back up Cameron's statement. This sparked a flurry of editing activity (both constructive and vandalism) over the next several days, including nearly 100 edits on February 11. The article's traffic also dramatically increased, as it was viewed more than 15000 times on February 11 alone, up from an average of roughly 1600 views per day earlier this month. In response to the incident, user Malcolmxl5 wrote on the IP's talk page, "I would advise people using this IP address to avoid editing subjects related to the Conservative Party in particular, and to UK politics in general. Such editing may be seen as compromising the neutrality of articles in these areas and risks causing public embarrassment outside of Wikipedia to the [Conservative] Party."

Wikipedia misinformation repeated in press, then cited by Wikipedia

In the German Wikipedia version of the article Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, about German politician Karl-Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg, an additional name (Wilhelm) was added, a mistake that was then widely reproduced in German television and print media. According to an anonymous report on Slashdot, based on a post on the German site BILDblog, the error was reverted on German Wikipedia in the meantime. However, it was subsequently reintroduced and backed up by the erroneous media reports caused by the original falsehood.

Wikipedia doomed to fail?

Following a pessimistic story from The Independent on February 3 (see last week's coverage), more pundits and Wikipedia observers from the academic world have been discussing Wikipedia's future and whether the project is sustainable.

According to Ars Technica, law professor Eric Goldman sees Wikipedia faced with a dilemma as its influence continues to spread but its core community stops growing to match. Wikipedia could either remain open and fall prey to vandalism and misinformation—Goldman cites the above Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg incident—or exert more control—for example, with Flagged Revisions—and slow the influx of new community members even further.

“

Wikipedia won't be the same a couple of years from now as it was a couple of years ago, but nothing ever is.

”

— Joseph Reagle

Andrew Lih, author of the upcoming book The Wikipedia Revolution: How a bunch of nobodies created the world’s greatest encyclopedia, sees the vitality of community waning already. On his blog, Lih laments the failure to keep up with new popular culture topics, long the community's strong suit. Until after his post, Wikipedia had no article on How's Your News?, a potentially controversial new American television show premiering on MTV. He also notes an instance of content loss through an undiscussed article merge. Lih concludes that "perhaps that’s Wikipedia’s long term fate as a product of a decimated crowd: a slow march towards being stale and conventional, not out of commission but omission."

Joseph Reagle, a scholar who recently completed a doctoral dissertation on the collaborative culture of Wikipedia, takes a more optimistic view: "I think Wikipedia will survive even though/if the number of contributors levels off and flag revisions are enabled. The latter feature might prompt a flurry of stories about how Wikipedia is over, but it might stem the flow of future stories about embarrassing vandalism. Wikipedia won't be the same a couple of years from now as it was a couple of years ago, but nothing ever is."

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How busy was 2008?

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By Dr pda

Content review processes such as Featured article candidates (FAC), Featured list candidates (FLC), Good article nominations (GAN) and Peer reviews (PR) are important for ensuring articles meet the high standards demanded of Wikipedia's best work, and providing suggestions on how to achieve them. These processes, however, cannot function without the participation of editors willing to review articles (see related story); such reviewers are perennially in short supply. User:Dr pda takes a look back at 2008 to see how busy this aspect of Wikipedia was.

Featured articles

In 2008, 719 articles were promoted to Featured article (FA) status, while 143 articles had featured status removed via the Featured article review (FAR) process. The net increase, 576 featured articles, is approximately the same as in 2007.^[1]

A featured article candidate is open to review by the whole Wikipedia community. Editors can support the article's promotion, if they believe it meets all the criteria, or oppose it, by providing examples of instances where it does not. The Featured article director, User:Raul654, or his delegate, User:SandyGeorgia, will promote an article if consensus in favour of promotion has been reached among the reviewers after a reasonable time.

The number of open featured article candidacies thus depends on several factors: the rate of FAC nominations, how well the article satisfies the FA criteria, the number of reviewers and how frequently the FA director or delegate processes nominations. The above graph (to the right) shows the first two factors. The total number of nominations per month has gradually declined throughout 2008 (November was abnormally low in nominations), but the proportion of candidates being promoted has remained constant at around 55%. The graph to the left shows that the number of open FACs has remained relatively constant at approximately 40 during 2008. The large spike at the beginning of the year is the remnant of the backlog experienced at the end of 2007 which led to the appointment of SandyGeorgia as FAC delegate.^[2] Smaller peaks, for example in December, are the result of a shortage of reviews; clear consensus is not reached, therefore FACs cannot be closed.

Articles can also lose featured status through the Featured article review process. Editors who believe an article no longer meets the featured article criteria can list it at FAR. Ideally one or more editors will take on the task of bringing it up to standard. The FAR process usually lasts longer than FAC, to allow these improvements to take place. The graph above shows the number of articles undergoing a featured article review has been gradually decreasing throughout 2008.

Featured lists

In 2008, 722 lists were promoted to Featured list (FL) status, while 53 lists had featured status removed via the Featured list review (FLRC) process. This is a significant increase over 2007, for which the corresponding figures are 339 promotions and 7 demotions.^[3] The featured list process has been growing steadily since January 2007 and is now comparable in size to the featured article process, both in terms of articles promoted throughout 2008 and number of open featured list candidacies. The absolute number of featured lists (1,229) is still only half that of featured articles (2,387). Both FLC and FLRC work in a similar way to their featured article counterparts.

Good articles

The number of Good articles (GA) increased by 2,416 over 2008. This is up 45% on the net increase of 1,662 in 2007. There are currently 6,102 Good articles, 2.5 times the number of Featured articles.^[4]

The major difference between the Good and Featured article processes, apart from slightly less strict criteria, is that promotion to GA only requires a review from one editor who was not a significant contributor to the article. While this allows more rapid recognition of good quality articles (the monthly increase in GAs is three times that for FAs), here too demand for reviewers outstrips supply. The graph to the left shows that typically 75% of the nominations on the GAN page have not been reviewed; The remainder are mostly awaiting improvement to the satisfaction of the reviewer. From time to time backlog elimination drives are organised (one is running at the moment); their effect shows up as a sharp drop in the number of nominations, for example in October 2008. (The mid-2007 backlog drive caused an even more dramatic drop.)

Peer review

In 2008, 2,090 articles had a peer review (PR). This is a slight decrease from 2007's figure of 2,296.^[1] The graph to the right shows that the number of peer reviews remained roughly constant throughout the year. Peer review differs from the previously discussed processes in that it does not result in the awarding of a particular status to the article; instead it is a means for editors to solicit suggestions for improving an article. Peer review is often recommended as a way of attracting the attention of previously uninvolved editors to spot problems which might not be apparent to those closer to the article. Once again this requires reviewers. In February User:Ruhrfisch started a list of peer reviews which had not received any comments after a few days. The number of items on this list, shown as the red line in the graph, is usually between 10 and 20, typically 10% of the total number of open peer reviews. While this is a much smaller backlog than for Good article nominations, more reviewers are still needed at PR; only a handful of people ensure articles on the PR backlog list get reviewed.

Notes

^ ^a ^b Source: Wikipedia:Featured article statistics
^ Notice of appointment: Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates, 26 November 2007
^ Source: Template:Featured list log
^ Source: Wikipedia:Good article statistics

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WikiProject Gaelic games

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By Garden

Although a small WikiProject, the Gaelic games project serves a great array of sports native to Ireland. Gaelic games include Gaelic football and hurling, both of which generally take place in Ireland, the games' homeland. Despite its size, the project is quite active, as Gnevin tells us.

Tell me about how you got involved with Wikipedia.

I couldn't recall why I get involved, but a quick look back at my earliest edits found that I started by removing original research and points of view, but at the time I didn't realise that was what I was doing. I was just looking at Gaelic Athletic Association articles and thinking, "hey, that's not right".

What types of article do you generally edit in relation to the project, for example, players, clubs?

“

That's one of the joys of the Wikipedia project: you don't have to have a master's degree in English to help out.

”

— Gnevin

Prose not being my strongest suit, I generally tend to stick to the project's categories and infoboxes; using AutoWikiBrowser to tidy and organise categories or improving the infoboxes and templates. That's one of the joys of the Wikipedia project: you don't have to have a master degree in English to help out. There are always things that need sorting or referencing, or whatever.

What features of the project do you participate in?

The project membership is small in number while the project has a large enough scope; it is all hands to the pumps, and I generally try to assist wherever I can. The other users in the project are very good editors, and every so often they or I will need minor help on a reference or will seek input to a stylistic change. As a whole I've found the project ticks over quite nicely without the need of article drives or a featured article of the week sort of thing.

How did you hear about Gaelic games?

Being Irish, where Gaelic games are the national sports, and living a stone's throw from Croke Park and Parnell Park, Gaelic games are hard to avoid. In Ireland the Gaelic Athletic Association is more than just a sporting organisation; it is a cultural one too, and its impact is felt in many corners of Irish life.

How would a new user get involved with the Wikiproject?

Well getting involved is easy, just edit one of the articles within our scope. The GAA's overseas board's articles, such as North American GAA need work—perhaps they are local to international users. Alternatively, you may read the WikiProject talk page see what needs doing.

Just for fun now—which is your favourite Gaelic game, and which team or nation do you support?

Well, there isn't really a national side, however Ireland do play Australia in the International Rules Series. The Gaelic Athletic Association is organised by county and I support Dublin's Gaelic footballers first and foremost, but also have an interest in Dublin's hurlers.

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Discussion Reports And Miscellaneous Articulations

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By §hep, Jake Wartenberg, and Hermione1980

The following is a brief overview of the current discussions taking place on the English Wikipedia.

Centralized discussions

Proposed deletion of over 4,500 category redirects

It was proposed to delete 4,867 category redirects that had been determined to be unused via bot processes. The proposal was met with general opposition to deletion. On February 13 the discussion was closed as keep; noting that if deletion of certain redirects is desired, they can be nominated for CfD just like any other category, but they are not speediable.

Final guideline clarification: logo use in sports articles

New guidelines on the use of sports teams logos were proposed on January 12. The proposal was reformatted three times, each discussion steadily losing contributors. Due to the drop of contributors the Arbitration Committee was asked as to what the next venue of discussion should be; they advised that the discussion be taken to the Mediation Cabal. A case was opened on February 5 and is currently awaiting a mediator.

Inclusion of lists of unusual things

A centralized discussion was opened regarding the place of "lists of unusual things" within Wikipedia. One viewpoint is that it's never possible to objectively define "unusual", and so these lists are inherently incapable of meeting our neutral point of view, and that they constitute Original Research as the inclusion of any given entry in one of these lists is in effect synthesis. Others argue against this, saying that the word "unusual" in this context is just a shorthand way of saying "meets the criteria for inclusion on this page", and that as long as those criteria are stated, we are not violating neutral point of view, but just exercising a collective editorial judgment on the way in which information is grouped together into articles.

Straw poll: Allow moves to be marked as major edits

There is an ongoing straw poll on whether users should be allowed to mark page moves as major (normal) edits. Currently, all page moves are marked as minor; it has been argued that some page moves are controversial and users should be able to decide if their page move is minor or major. The proposal has been met with general support. The poll is set to close on February 20.

Granting editprotected access to non-administrators

A discussion over a proposal to allow non-administrators to edit fully protected pages is currently ongoing. The proposal was spurred when an administrator from the German Wikipedia requested adminship so he could edit the English Wikipedia spam blacklist. The discussion was closed as successful, but many of those in opposition did not want to grant him more rights than he needed to edit that blacklist. There are currently three ongoing sub-discussions regarding if this proposal should come to fruition. The current discussions include: A new access category, similar to rollbacker or accountcreator, which grants editprotected rights and nothing else.; which has been met with equal support and oppose votes, A set of new access categories, similar to rollbacker or accountcreator, each of which grants editprotected rights to a particular namespace and nothing else.; that proposal has been met with mostly opposition, and a proposal to Leave things as-is; this has been met with a small fraction of the total votes.

Bot that automatically archives every URL used as a reference

A BRFA is currently undergoing discussion as to whether a bot should automatically submit URLs recently added to Wikipedia to WebCite and then supplement the Wikipedia link with a link to the WebCite archive. The proposal has been met with both support and opposition; those opposing worry that the links will clutter articles and watch lists and proponents feel that the bot will be an effective tool against link rot. WebCite has commented on the BRFA in support of the idea.

How to raise the tone of the wiki

In a thread on the Arbitration Committee's noticeboard entitled "How to raise the tone of the wiki" and on various mailing lists, there has been much recent discussion about increasing incivility and personal attacks on Wikipedia. Discussion about ArbCom desysoping uncivil admins and the problem of incivility on English Wikipedia in general are being discussed. David Gerard indicated that Wikipedia has "a chronic ongoing civility problem" and that the Arbitration Committee should note "that Wikipedia:No personal attacks is in fact hard policy" which they will enforce. He proposed that the following wording be placed at RFAr or AC/N:

The Arbitration Committee invites cases and discussion of chronic ongoing violations of Wikipedia:No personal attacks, which is fundamental hard Wikipedia policy. Not one-offs and not (at this stage) mere incivility, but chronic ongoing personal attacks. Attempts to work through the problems (e.g. RFCs) will be expected to have been tried and failed before a case is brought.

There is general agreement that incivility is an issue; however, there is no consensus on how or if the Committee should handle these issues as they arise nor for the above wording.

Proposals

Edit notice on all BLPs

It was proposed by Cenarium to instate the use of an editnotice for all biographies of living persons. This notice would be added to all articles in Category:Living people, similar to what has been done for disambiguation pages. The proposed text is located at {{BLP editintro}}. It reads:

This article must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons. Controversial material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced should not be added and if present, must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted or if there are other concerns relating to this policy, please report it on the biographies of living persons noticeboard.

The proposal was met with overall support from those contributing to the discussion. The proposed JavaScript was transferred to MediaWiki talk:Common.js where it is currently undergoing discussion on final implementation and code tweaks.

Requests for comment

Proposed reevaluation of Notability guidelines

Although notability is a long-standing guideline, some users believe that it is time to reassess its appropriateness and meaning. This request for comment has been lead to by discussions at WT:FICT, WP:Notability/RFC:compromise, and WT:N, as well as countless AfDs in which notability has played a role and has been disputed. The request was designed to determine the community's position on 1) Whether or not there should be notability guidelines at all, rather than simply using other policies and guidelines such as Verifiability, What Wikipedia is not, No original research, and Reliable sources; 2) Whether or not the current notability guidelines should be changed or left as it is; 3) Whether or not Wikipedia:Notability (WP:N) should be renamed. Other discussions currently going on include whether or not to replace WP:N with two separate guidelines and whether or not WP:N should be made policy. Discussion 1) resulted in a snow keep, discussion 2) has general support, and discussion 3) has equal amounts of supporters and objectors. The discussion regarding replacing WP:N with two separate guidelines has been met with general opposition.

Proposal to modify the "Procedure for administrators" at WP:CSD

It has been proposed to modify the section "Procedure for administrators" at CSD to include:

If an article is deleted under any of the applicable Criteria for Speedy Deletion, this deletion can only be restored via WP:DRV discussion or via disciplinary discussion in the case of misuse of tools. Regular recreation of non-salted articles with new or improved content is allowed by any editors, and subjected to a regular process as if the article were entirely new, including further CSD if that is the case. Obvious mistakes and self-reversions do not require DRV.

The proposal has been met with general opposition.

Proposal to make Wikipedia:Coatrack a guideline

It has been proposed to make Wikipedia:Coatrack a guideline. The discussions have resulted in general opposition to the promotion.

Deletion review regarding indefinite hosting clause

Discussion is currently ongoing as to whether the section of WP:UP#NOT "Copies of other pages" should be removed. The current consensus appears to be leaning towards removing any time limits on how long content can remain in userspace barring illegal or libelous content.

Proposal to change wording of WP:ICONDECORATION

A lengthy discussion is taking place over whether or not to reword one heading of Manual of Style (icons) from "Help the reader rather than decorate" to "Help the reader rather than merely decorate" to more accurately describe the purpose of the guideline. Some editors have argued that the current wording regarding the use of icons in articles is misleading, or that the entire policy should be scrapped. Also, an alternate wording of the section's first paragraph has been proposed:

Icons should not be used solely to improve the visual appearance of an article. Icons which do not provide extra information to a reader or improve the readability of long lists are usually just a distraction (example). Generally, infobox fields containing only one or two entries and articles where nationality is not important should not use flag icons.

None of the proposals have consensus as of yet.

Proposed change to policy on ambiguous words in religious articles

There has been a proposal to modify the page on Frequently Asked Questions about Wikipedia's Neutral point of view policy regarding religion. The section under dispute reads:

Regarding terminology: Several words that have very specific meanings in studies of religion have different meanings in less formal contexts, e.g. fundamentalism and mythology. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia articles about religious topics should take care to use these words only in their formal senses in order to avoid causing unnecessary offense or misleading the reader. Conversely, editors should not avoid using terminology that has been established by the majority of the current reliable and notable sources on a topic out of sympathy for a particular point of view, or concern that readers may confuse the formal and informal meanings. Details about some particular terms can be found at WP:WTA.

The argument is revolving around the use of the word myth in religious articles when another word is used in multiple reliable sources. Also in discussion is the use of the word where it is controversial and what standards should be set for its use in articles.

A-Class assessments

The assessment level A-Class is currently undergoing discussion; main points of the Rfc are how A-Class assessments and reviews should be handled, the placement of A-Class in the {{grading scheme}}, and whether the WikiProject Military History A-Class review should be implemented on a wider scale similar to their B-Class assessment project. Currently {{grading scheme}} states that A-Class articles do not need to be GA-Class, but both the Military History and Film WikiProjects have A-Class review systems placing them above GAs. Additionally, many WikiProjects don't use A-Class at all at this time due to the resources a proper review process takes to complete.

Options for what should be done include: leaving A-Class as it is, up to each project separately; standardizing A-Class below GA-Class, or standardizing A-Class between GA and FA-Class. Also up for discussion is the possibility of making A-Class reviews project wide, rather than being covered by each WikiProject separately.

Due to the high volume of participation in the discussions and the conflicting ideas it has been proposed to have a meeting on IRC scheduled for February 21 or 22 at 1900h UTC at #wikipedia-1.0. On discussion will be the possible restructuring of the grading scheme and the continued use of A-Class,.

WikiProject Puerto Rico's style guide

WikiProject Puerto Rico is trying to organize a style guide similar to WP:MILMOS at WP:PURMOS. The Rfc is asking for the assistance of the wider community to help develop the guideline and to make it an official guideline.

Arbitration Committee's mentorship proposals

A discussion has started regarding ArbCom using mentorship as a "parole" alternative to banning. Under the proposed guideline, where one or more editors persistently fail to engage other editors or the editorial process appropriately, they may be placed under supervised editing; during which a designated mentor may, at their discretion, revert or refactor any edit from that editor, direct the cessation of a line or theme of discussion by that editor, or ban the editor for increasing periods of time from any or all articles in the specified areas. At the end of a specified period the mentor will submit a review and recommendation to the Arbitration Committee who will in turn amend the remedy as they see fit. Under the supplemental proposal editors placed under supervised editing as defined above are placed under a topic ban on the specified area for the duration of the remedy until and unless a mentor is found that is agreeable to both the editor and the Committee. The current wording of the supplement is supported by the Committee; the naming of the position as "mentor" is currently under dispute.

Final adoption of WP:FICT as a guideline

After a straw poll showing informal support to make Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) a guideline; a request for comment has opened to try to get it officially adopted. There is currently a 50/50 split of supporters and objectors to the proposal. Common reasons for opposing include that there is not enough emphasis on the need for third party sources and that the proposal's wording is confusing or unclear. Supporters comments generally include that Wikipedia needs some form of governing fiction articles that is official and that this proposal is a good stepping stone.

Community expectations of CheckUser

A discussion has been opened to receive community feedback regarding expectations of privacy as it relates to CheckUser and to receive feedback on uses of CheckUser, considered by the community, to be appropriate or inappropriate. This information will be used by the Review Board when it is officially appointed. As of publication the views of five users have been stated; while others comment on whether they agree with that user's opinion or not. Only one viewpoint currently has more opposition than support. The discussion is planned to close on March 1, 00:00 UTC, but may close at a different date at the discretion of the Audit Panel.

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Approved this week

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By seresin

Administrators

Two editors were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: Nja247 (nom) and WereSpielChequers (nom).

Bots

Five bots or bot tasks were approved to begin operating this week: RFC posting script (task request), Chrisbot (task request), Erik9bot (task request), Robert SkyBot (task request) and Legobot (task request).

Featured pages

Twelve articles were promoted to featured status this week: Carsten Borchgrevink (nom), The Chaser APEC pranks (nom), William Bostock (nom), Hurricane Nate (2005) (nom), Tropical Storm Kiko (2007) (nom), United States Military Academy (nom), In Utero (nom), Sideshow Bob (nom), John Calvin (nom), Edgar Speyer (nom), Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (nom) and Greece Runestones (nom).

Fourteen lists were promoted to featured status this week: List of ECW Tag Team Champions (nom), Rumford Medal (nom), List of Olympic medalists in short track speed skating (nom), List of Los Angeles Clippers head coaches (nom), 2008 World Series of Poker results (nom), Buchanan Medal (nom), List of Football League Cup winners (nom), WCW Hall of Fame (nom), List of number-one albums of 1983 (U.S.) (nom), List of Kansas City Chiefs starting quarterbacks (nom), List of Ah! My Goddess episodes (season 1) (nom), Pantera discography (nom), List of Hot 100 number-one singles of 2004 (U.S.) (nom) and Nashville Sounds all-time roster (nom).

Five topics were promoted to featured status this week: The Simpsons (season 6) (nom), Seasons of Bleach (nom), Beauchamp–Sharp Tragedy (nom), Numbered highways in Amenia (CDP), New York (nom) and Myst series (nom).

No portals were promoted to featured status this week.

The following featured articles were displayed on the Main Page this week as Today's featured article: Toa Payoh ritual murders, Buildings and architecture of Bristol, History of evolutionary thought, 300, Romeo and Juliet, Aldol reaction, Thomas Cranmer and Theramenes.

Former featured pages

One article was delisted this week: Kalimpong (nom).

Three lists were delisted this week: List of Merriam–Webster's Words of the Year (nom), Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama (nom) and List of Metal Gear Solid characters (nom).

No topics were delisted this week.

Featured media

The following featured pictures were displayed on the Main Page this week as picture of the day: Table d'hôte, Dark Small-branded Swift, Charles Darwin, Hilda Clark, Leucanthemum paludosum, Battle of Harper's Ferry, Vernon and Irene Castle and Mark Harmon.

No media files were featured this week.

No featured pictures were demoted this week.

Fifteen pictures were promoted to featured status this week and are shown below.

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Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

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By X! and Aude

This is a summary of recent technology and site configuration changes that affect the English Wikipedia. Note that some changes described here have not yet gone live as of press time; the English Wikipedia is currently running version 1.43.0-wmf.2 (ce9d259), 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

Removing a section no longer leaves excess whitespace. (r46684, bug 14938)

New features

The magic words for namespaces and pagenames can now be used as parser functions to return the desired namespace or normalized title/title part for a given title. (r46662, bug 8249)
GeSHi has been upgraded to r1402, providing syntax highlighting for additional languages. (r46666, bug 10967)
Import and export functionality have been added to the API. (r46815, bug 17007)
Revision and log suppression (RevisionDelete) is now enabled for oversighters, so that edit summaries and log entries can be hidden but are not completely purged from the database. This feature can be used in cases of vandalism, spam, and other abusive edits and actions.

Other news

The Wikimedia Foundation has purchased 36 new application servers (with 8 cores at 2.5 GHz each). So far, 9 of the servers have been installed, making the page load on Wikipedia much quicker and helping alleviate site slow downs which have occurred at peak times when the servers had hit a CPU wall. With the new servers installed, the AJAX suggestions for searches have been re-enabled. [1]

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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The Report on Lengthy Litigation

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By seresin

Checkuser and Oversight elections closed on the 15th. Former arbitrator Dmcdevit was reappointed as an Oversight and Checkuser. The appointment was a restoration of tools to an editor who had previously held them; it appears to have nothing to do with the aforementioned elections. The Committee formally deferred appointing a new IRC liaison; Wizardman was announced as the replacement of FT2 for this position a few weeks back, but the appointment was withdrawn. The Committee announced their proposal for a codified process of removing "advanced" user permissions. Significant opposition has arisen to the proposed process for emergency removals.

The Arbitration Committee neither opened nor closed any cases this week, leaving five open.

Evidence phase

SemBubenny: A case about the communication behavior of SemBubenny (formerly Mikkalai), and his use of administrator tools in disputed deletions.
Ayn Rand: A case about editorial behavior, such as alleged POV-pushing and bad faith, in relation to the Ayn Rand article. The Arbitration Committee accepted the case as they found that all other avenues of dispute resolution had failed to resolve the dispute.
Date delinking: A case regarding the behavior of editors in the ongoing dispute relating to policy on linking dates in articles. An injunction has been issued prohibiting large-scale linking or delinking of dates until the case is resolved.
Scientology: A case regarding behavioral problems in Scientology-related articles; the case is related to the prior case Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/COFS.

Voting

Fringe science: A case initially filed about the behavior of ScienceApologist, but opened to look at editing in the entire area of fringe science, and the behavior of editors who are involved in the area of dispute. In a proposed decision now being voted on by arbitrators, Coren has proposed the creation of a new type of arbitration remedy, "supervised editing", which an editor may be placed under when he or she does not "engage other editors or the editorial process appropriately". A designated supervisor would be permitted to revert or refactor the edits of the other editor at his or her discretion, ban the editor from articles, or require that the editor propose any substantial content edits to the supervisor, who will make the edits on his behalf. After the period of supervision terminates, the supervisor will submit a report to the committee who will revise the remedy that placed the editor under supervision. Other remedies include placing ScienceApologist under such supervision, restricting Martinphi from editing policy and guideline pages, admonishing Pcarbonn, and issuing general warnings to behave and seek mediation. Arbitrator voting is in progress.

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[FAS-1] Source: Wikipedia:Featured article statistics

[2] Notice of appointment: Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates, 26 November 2007

[3] Source: Template:Featured list log

[4] Source: Wikipedia:Good article statistics

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