Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-05-10/In the news
Jimbo bans Commons pornography, UK political biographies 'cleansed' as expenses scandal dies down, Government-published reports cite Wikipedia, and more
Jimmy Wales takes action in response to pornography allegations
PC Pro magazine reports that Jimmy Wales has asked Commons administrators to delete images that "appeal solely to prurient interests". His plea came in the wake of Larry Sanger's reports to the FBI that the Wikimedia Foundation is freely hosting and distributing "depictions of child sexual molestation" (see archived story), the subject of a remarkably one-sided article by Fox News that cast the Wikimedia Foundation, as well as Wikimedia deputy director Erik Moeller, in a negative light.
The story of the sexual content purge and the ensuing controversy has been picked up by several news websites, including BBC News [1] and The Register.[2] To date the only major newspaper to cover it is the Indian Daily News & Analysis, which published an eleven-paragraph wire story on 29 April [3] and an eight-paragraph wire story on 8 May.[4]
British politicians' expenses covered up on Wikipedia; ten biographies have been 'cleansed' and some remain uncorrected as scandal dies down
On 9 May the Sunday Telegraph published an investigative article, titled "MPs, their expenses and the Wikipedia 'cover-up'", about how British politicians have removed details of the Parliamentary expenses scandal from their Wikipedia biographies. It appeared on page eleven, overshadowed by the front-page story on talks to form a coalition government which was broken down over the first five pages, but the article was part of the newspaper's election coverage.
The journalists list ten cases in which details of expenses claims were removed by either the politicians themselves, a staffer, or a confidant of the politicians involved. They note that in some cases "the ploy worked" while "in other cases, the details were reinstated and the people who tried to delete them were reprimanded".
The Signpost's own analysis of the article histories shows that there was prolonged edit warring on four articles, but only two (on the Joan Ryan and Ian Taylor articles) resulted in the details being removed permanently. (Note: both articles have since been corrected). There was consensus to remove details on Malcolm Rifkind. The vast majority of edits which removed details were caught with the Twinkle vandalism tool or manually reverted within a few hours, but those that went unnoticed lasted for days or even weeks.
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Two reports published by Irish government cite Wikipedia
On 3 May the Irish Independent published an article on page two, titled "State reports used Wikipedia as source", revealing that two government-published reports, a study produced by the Department of Environment and a report by the Department of Agriculture cited Wikipedia as a source. Apparently, neither report used Wikipedia for technical citations, as was the case in a recent Australian report that was attacked over sourcing (see Signpost coverage).
Opposition Senator Paschal Donohoe criticised the departments for failing to double-check their sources. Long-time Wikipedia critic Ian O'Doherty wrote in his column on 5 May that it was "bizarre" the government was relying on such an unstable source, pointing out that his biography has twice been vandalised this year.
Briefly
- Two weeks ago Umberto Eco, the pioneer of modern semiotics, said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País that the omnipresence of the Internet (presumably referring to the popularity of microblogging) creates language issues which lead to culture loss, but acknowledged that reference websites like Wikipedia are useful. The interview was republished in the influential Colombian magazine Revista Cambio and was this week discussed by South American commentators.
- Erica Cervini wrote in the education section of The Age that Australian universities are "urging students" to use the Internet in class and recommending they consult Wikipedia as a source. She was critical of both these developments, disregarding the arguments of writers such as Will Richardson [5] and Anya Kamenetz [6] in favor of online classwork.
- A product manager from Google told Reuters the company wants more structured Arabic content online, and it is now encouraging people to improve the Arabic Wikipedia. Five months ago, the company was heavily promoting Google Knol (see this interview, 6:50 in, for instance).
- In a video interview with The Business Insider, Jimmy Wales discussed the history and success of Wikipedia and Wikia, touching on subjects such as the decision to make Wikimedia a non-profit, and comparisons with Demand Media and Google Knol. Wales has been getting a lot of positive press coverage since appearing in the documentary America: The Story of Us. A speech he gave on the use of wikis in product marketing was published as an essay in the 6 May issue of Marketing Week.
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