Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2013-07-17
WikiProject Square Enix
- WikiProject Military History is nearing 95 percent completion for their Featured Articles goal
- WikiProject Tropical Cyclones could use your help during this year's hurricane season in the Atlantic and Pacific
This week, we explored the fantasy worlds of video game developer Square Enix by interviewing WikiProject Square Enix. The project began in September 2006 as a spin-off of WikiProject Final Fantasy, although WikiProject Square Enix eventually outgrew its parent and absorbed the project in 2009. In addition to Final Fantasy, WikiProject Square Enix covers Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger, and a variety of other game series, with exceptions explained in the interview below. The project is home to 32 pieces of Featured material and 104 Good and A-class articles. The project's efforts to improve articles and cull inadequate stubs has resulted in the project attaining a strong relative WikiWork rating of 3.45. We interviewed Lucia Black, ProtoDrake, Judgesurreal777, and Axem Titanium.
- What motivated you to join WikiProject Square Enix? What are your favorite games developed by the company?
- Lucia Black: The articles were very well written when I joined Wikipedia and believed I could gain more experience joining. Also I was familiar with most of what the Wikiproject's scope covered. My favorite games would have to be Final Fantasy VII, VIII, IX and X along with the first Parasite Eve game.
- ProtoDrake: I came in on the project quite by accident when I was trying to improve the Fabula Nova Crystallis article. I had recently become very familiar with the games of Square Enix, and felt in duty bound to help get many of them up to the best quality possible. My favorite games have got to be Final Fantasy X, XII, XIII, XIII-2, as well as Vagrant Story.
- Judgesurreal777: I joined Wikipedia in 2006, and I was not initially sure where I wanted to contribute, so I decided to edit anything and everything that interested me. I was initially consumed by reading about games I knew about, and learning how they were created, and games I never knew existed. And since I was a great fan of Final Fantasy and the Mana series, I threw myself into working with others on the games I grew up with and still enjoy. My all time favorite game is Final Fantasy IV since it was the first video game to make me cry, shout, and care in the same way a book or movie did.
- Axem Titanium: I can't believe it's been more than a half-decade since I joined the project (back when it was WikiProject Final Fantasy). I was interested in improving Final Fantasy articles and looked up to the old guard of WP:FF including Deckiller and Ryu Kaze who did a lot of the heavy lifting before I arrived. I joined just as they were closing out a long-term drive to improve every main series game to FA. I had the privilege of helping on FFVII, FFVIII, and FFXII, which were the last few non-FAs at the time. My favorite games by the company include FFVI, FFXII, Kingdom Hearts, and The World Ends With You.
- Have you contributed to any of the project's Featured or Good Articles? Are there any articles nearing FA or GA status that could use some help? What are the toughest challenges when writing about a video game developer and their products?
- Lucia Black: Up until recently I didn't think I could make articles up to GA, however that changed when an editor pointed out that the article I was working on was very close to GA. Since then, I was able to help some editors with some nominations. So my contribution to GA articles has been very recent.
- ProtoDrake: I always hoped I would be able to contribute to a Good or Featured Article. I had the honor of helping get XIII-2 up to both tiers, as well as generally maintaining other Good and Featured articles. So yes, I have contributed to both quite recently.
- Judgesurreal777: I nominated the Mana (series) article for featured status in 2008, and have helped on most of our major article development drives since 2006. I am conducting one at the moment with a focus on pushing some very high quality B-class articles others have worked on to GA status. A challenge at the moment is that many of the articles that need to be improved from Start to C class are more obscure, and finding reliable sources to expand them can be difficult.
- Axem Titanium: I was a major contributor to the FA drives for FFVII, FFVIII, and FFXII. On a parallel path, I collaborated with Guyinblack25 to bring all the major Kingdom Hearts articles at the time up to GA or FA, though this was before those articles were covered by WP:FF. The challenge with improving Square Enix articles is that there is a wealth of knowledge and material locked behind a Japanese language barrier. Often during the FAC process, reviewers ask for additional sources which are outside our capability of accessing them because few of us have studied Japanese language translation, sometimes leading to frustrating stalemates.
- All of the project's articles are assessed, the project has no stubs, and the number of start-class articles is relatively small considering how many higher-quality articles are under the project's scope. How was this accomplished? Has the project's overall size made assessments easier or more difficult?
- Lucia Black: I remember we made a drive, and usually "if it cant pass stub, then we'll have to axe them" type of drive doesn't sit well with other Wikiprojects, or Wikipedia for that matter. But considering we had a manageable amount of articles and well-experienced editors, it made the job easier and accepted by the project.
- Judgesurreal777: It was a hard fought process of many years, with tremendous hard work by editors past and present, and involved a lot of tough discussions. It has been difficult to come to grips with what is notable and what isn't, especially in the 2006 to 2008 period when many editors, including myself, were not clear on how to present works of fiction in an encyclopedic style. The creation of page listing all the articles in our scope, with each article labeled with its class rating really helped provide a path forward, and may have encouraged the Stub elimination drive pioneered by User:PresN over a year ago. I think Wikiprojects like ours need big goals in order to inspire editors to go farther than they think is possible.
- Axem Titanium: The stub elimination drive was galvanized by PresN in early 2011. I think it was a fantastic idea for a relatively "mature" WikiProject like ours where the lion's share of top-level improvement work is done. The project has always had a reputation for excellence and bringing up the quality on the lower end is just as important as increasing quality at the top. The smaller scope of the project was definitely beneficial to making the task manageable.
- How does the project handle articles about the pre-merger Square and Enix companies? Are the products of companies bought by Square Enix included, such as games by Taito Corporation or Eidos Interactive?
- Lucia Black: We had to make a huge discussion about what to include in our scope. We agreed that games published but not developed by these companies wasnt included, which was difficult due to Enix being solely a publishing company, so we allowed the exception to those that were most associated with the Square Enix brand. Taito and Eidos are not included, however Eidos is currently being associated more and more to the Square Enix brand so we may include them very soon.
- Axem Titanium: To expand on Lucia's answer, the line for inclusion and exclusion is actually rather fluid and the discussion concluded with the open-ended suggestion to discuss on the project's talk page about specifics as they arise.
- Do Square Enix articles attract the vandalism, in-universe writing, fancruft, or speculation that beleaguers other WikiProjects dedicated to video games and entertainment? Is there any overlap in editors or resources between Wikipedia and the Square Enix Wiki?
- Lucia Black: As much as any other Wikiproject, but we dont usually get very persistent vandals. A quick revert, and its usually over with. We often do get alot of in-universe once a game has recently been released but that's often manageable. I sometimes see some overlap in the smaller articles between Final fantasy wikia or square enix wikia.
- ProtoDrake: Yes, but not as much as with Halo or Assassin's Creed, thank goodness (I had to apply for semi-protection for them on that account). The biggest thing I have had to overcome is vandalism with XIII and XIII-2 (which were controversial in a way) but nothing major most of the time.
- Judgesurreal777: The articles are in general very well patrolled, and the higher the article class rating, the more vigorous editors are of removing any fancruft, though speculation has been an issue as the number of video game news websites has increased in recent years and their reliability is not always clear.
- Does WikiProject Square Enix collaborate with any other WikiProjects? Are there any initiatives or contests that could be hosted by multiple video game projects?
- Lucia Black: I don't think we ever collaborated with another wikiproject. The same goes for initiatives and competition by multiple video game projects.
- ProtoDrake: Never in my experience, unfortunately. Things might well go quicker and smoother if that happened.
- Judgesurreal777: Most of our issues come from or go to Wikiproject Video Games, so we usually interface with them if there is any particularly controversial issue. Wikiproject Video Games currently has three big goals, similar to our projects article drives, and that seems to be a focus at the moment, though it would be cool if they gave prizes to big contributors.
- What are the project's most urgent needs? How can a new contributor help today?
- Lucia Black: In my own opinion, I believe what we need more urgently are resources for the older articles that fall into our scope.
- ProtoDrake: I fell we need more people on our side, experienced editors with expert knowledge in this area can be brought to bear both on out-of-date articles and newly created ones or ones for newly-released games that are subject to frequent change and slightly more open to vandalism and in-universe fancruft stuff.
- Judgesurreal777: Our project especially would benefit from editor retention efforts, since we have had many very experienced editors burn out over time due to the intense debates we have had, or the amount of work we have had to do to improve the articles. New editors could help on upcoming game articles where we need people who have played the games and know the plot and characters, and can help with basic article expansion.
- Axem Titanium: The project has suffered from a slow process of calcification over the past few years as dedicated and prolific editors have retired or their interests have moved on. The greatest current threat is the natural degeneration process that occurs in Wikipedia articles that aren't actively being improved, which is the case for most of the major articles. A new editor would most likely find the greatest returns by engaging a passion for one of the less popular series and running an improvement drive with interested collaborators. The same could be done for one of the newer titles which may not have had an initial improvement phase yet.
Next week's article is for believers and nonbelievers alike. Until then, find your faith in the archive.
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Most-viewed articles of the week
Summary: An eclectic mix last week, as tragedies both aeronautical and gun-related jostled for position with snooping aliens, oceanic pigs and historic bikinis. With the northern summer putting the brakes on non-cinematic pop culture, other topics took hold, and the week featured a swarm of new entries.
For the top 25 articles of the week, plus analysis, see here.
For the week of July 7 to 13, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most trafficked pages* were:
Rank Article Class Views Image Notes 1 Yahoo! 
1,663,622 
The page's 23-day spike came to an end on July 11, leaving the question unanswered as to whether it represented honest interest in a once-moribund company or if it was just an automated bot. 2 Roswell UFO incident
1,127,165 
A Google Doodle/video game to celebrate the 66th anniversary of a supposed flying saucer in Roswell, New Mexico led to a massive spike in views. 3 Shooting of Trayvon Martin
930,506 
The debate over George Zimmerman's shooting of unarmed Trayvon Martin in February 2012, and its relevance to race relations in America and the validity of "stand your ground" laws, reached its climax on July 13 when a jury found Zimmerman not guilty of either murder or manslaughter. 4 Andy Murray 
838,002 
The first British man (but not first British person) to win the home tournament of Wimbledon in 77 years. 5 Facebook
775,361 
A perennially popular article. 6 Pacific Rim (film) 
672,348 Guillermo del Toro's anime-inspired monsters vs. robots movie came in third over the weekend, losing to Despicable Me 2 and Grown Ups 2, but it remained the biggest talking point among Wikipedian cineastes. 7 History of the bikini 
664,579 
A Reddit thread on this page triggered over 650,000 views. 8 Big Major Cay
657,617 
This beach on an uninhabited island in the Bahamas where wild pigs swim in the ocean apparently began its trip around the Internet on a blog post over at treehugger.com, and from there spread virally from person to person. 9 Deaths in 2013 List 414,797 
The list of deaths in the current year is always quite a popular article. 10 Asiana Airlines Flight 214
398,345 
The Boeing 777 crashed on arrival at San Francisco International Airport on July 6 after a trans-Pacific flight from Seoul. Plane crashes are inherently dramatic, and so always garner public interest; however thankfully casualties so far have been relatively light, with only three deaths and nine severe injuries out of the 307 people on board.
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Wikimedia Foundation's new plans announced
Last week the Wikimedia Foundation released its annual plan for July 2013 to June 2014. It provides a surprisingly frank view—of past achievements and failures, and future goals and risks—that could be afforded only by a non-profit that is confident and beholden to no commercial or political interests.
The document sets out the blueprint for how the Foundation intends to evolve during the coming fiscal year—the fourth in the five-year strategic plan it launched in 2010. In backgrounding the 2013–14 plan, the document describes progress over the past two years. In 2011–12, the WMF was "capacity-building, conducting research and analysis, and experimenting". Last year this shifted into an "execution phase", building on the introduction of the strategy of "narrowing focus", developed and introduced by the Board of Trustees and executive director Sue Gardner a year ago. The key aspects of this new strategy are a primary focus on product development and engineering, and on grantmaking; it involves a willingness to "shut down or deprioritise" areas deemed not to be supporting these areas.
The document admits that the 2015 targets were "audacious guesswork" and will not be achieved, although progress towards them has been "steady and real" in the key indicators of site uptime, site performance, time-to-rollout, number of readers, and number of articles. The disappointment continues to be the number of editors, which has proven to be "our most difficult challenge", but the claim is made that there is "a good outlook for materially impacting the overall size and diversity of Wikimedia's community in the year ahead".
2012–13: what has been achieved?
There have been significant advances. VisualEditor is now under trial as an option on the English Wikipedia, despite (perhaps in anticipation of) the wave of technical complaints from the editing community. Mobile readership is growing strongly, with improvements to the user experience. Wikipedia Zero, while "a tougher slog than anticipated", is on track to give half a billion people mobile access to free downloads from WMF sites, although page-view results are as yet less impressive. In a move towards financial transparency, the grantmaking program has been re-organised and expanded with the creation of the FDC. The travel project Wikivoyage was brought under the WMF umbrella as the first new type of content project since 2006. A framework for providing legal assistance to editors in certain circumstances was developed and implemented.
Financially, the WMF has finished the year "in excellent shape". A two-part fundraiser that experimented with the rationing of page banners has enabled important refinements. Revenue rose not by the expected 32% from the previous fiscal year, but by a notable 46%. Spending was slightly under-budget. Staffing has increased by 40% to 167, again slightly less than predicted.
2013–14: what does the next year hold?
The Foundation's most substantial change slated for 2013–14 is the split of the Product and Engineering Division into two departments. The move will allow the current head, Erik Möller, to devote his time solely to product-related concerns, while a second head will represent and deal with engineering issues. The move will come with a bump in funding from US$15.3M to $21M, and in staffing; the Foundation believes "this will enable our core engineering projects to launch more quickly and at a higher level of quality". There will be further investments in achieving high standards of evaluation in grantmaking. Emphasis on good governance comes after a number of issues in chapters over the past year, most notably the Gibraltarpedia scandal, which prompted "significant negative international press and required substantial Wikimedia Foundation managerial, legal, governance, and media relations resources to handle."
Of interest to the editing community will be the planned system-level improvements. There will be continual improvements to VisualEditor, which is seen as a key way of attracting more editors into the online projects. As this becomes a robust and stable default editing environment, the WMF will shift its attention to "a new frontier: real-time collaboration and chat. Collaborative editing environments (Google Docs, Etherpad, etc.) have proven that this combination is very powerful. In the Wikimedia context this will help address edit conflicts and inefficient collaboration on articles that receive attention from multiple users at the same time. It will also create wholly new opportunities for engagement and mentoring." Discussion systems will be modernised with Flow, a technically complex task for engineers, for which the urgency is underlined in the plan: "existing discussion systems and ad-hoc page/template-based workflows represent a critical barrier to contribution for new contributors". However, there is a note of caution—Flow is not expected to be available on all talk-based workflows by June 2014.
The Foundation's revenue is projected to decline slightly over the next year, from $50.9M to $50.1M. Spending, on the other hand, will surge by 30%, from $38.5M to $50.1M. The ambitious increase is on top of the 33% spending increase in 2012–13, though the plan takes care to note that it will be three percentage points lower than last year’s increase. Because $5M was added to the WMF's reserve in 2012–13, no additional funds will be allocated to it. While more revenue could be collected if needed, the WMF believes "this target reflects an appropriate balance between funding growth while minimizing [banner] annoyance to the readers of the projects." The Signpost asked chief revenue officer Zack Exley why the costs of fundraising will increase by some 35% (up by $1.2M to $4.6M) while the funds to be raised are projected to fall by 1.6%, but did not receive a reply.
Among the extensive treatment of "Risks considered in developing the 2013–14 plan" were developments of similar themes published in last year's plan. However, one notable new theme was that "Grantmaking may not prove to be an effective way of achieving programmatic impact." The WMF sees two major challenges: "as a movement we don't currently have a solid understanding of what programmatic impact looks like and how it can be achieved, [and] the movement seems to be on a path of rapidly creating incorporated, professionally staffed entities, and it is not clear whether that is the best path towards achieving programmatic impact." The response will involve the creation of a Program Evaluation and Design team, "to facilitate conversations among program leaders ... to identify and document best practices and expertise ...".
The Signpost talks to WMF staff
Of immediate interest to the editing community is the performance of the Product and Engineering Division, which holds the key to adapting the MediaWiki software and other functionalities that affect our daily lives and, ultimately, the experience of readers in about 20 billion page views a month. The annual plan allocates considerable space to discussing the risks posed by the Silicon Valley shortage: the WMF, it states, "faces a risk of not being able to hire the key engineers, designers, product managers, and other staff needed to deliver on this plan."
The Division's budget—which pays for salaries and associated travel, server and equipment purchases, hosting costs, and external contract services—will increase from $15.3M to $21.0M, up by 37%. We asked Erik Möller, VP of the Division, to what extent will this increase go towards higher salaries—either generally to existing staff in the department, or to new hires. In asking this, we put to him an observation sometimes made that WMF engineers are not well paid by industry standards. He disagreed with this observation:
"By non-profit standards, the Wikimedia Foundation offers salaries in the top quartile. By for-profit standards, the Wikimedia Foundation offers base salaries in the 50th percentile of Bay Area tech [employee] compensation ... Clearly, we are not going to win a bidding war with a multi-billion dollar tech company—but then again, they don't tend to have as awesome a mission as we do, and you may have to talk to a lawyer if you want to release code [you write for a for-profit] as open source. / ... our personnel costs do increase every year, accounting for cost-of-living, merit-based pay, and fairness adjustments (e.g. bringing folks who've been hired early at a lower base salary gradually to the level of more recent hires). In addition, we offer generous [health insurance and retirement] benefits plan ..."
Erik Möller's point about "fairness adjustments" does imply a recognition by the WMF that salaries have had to be adjusted upwards since the crisis hit in 2010. He further cited the increased flexibility for engineers, particularly in terms of working outside San Francisco, and a host of non-salary "strategies to attract engineering talent", detailed in the "Risks" section of the annual plan.
We asked LiAnna Davis, communications manager of the Wikipedia Education Program, who will it recruit as "volunteers and educators"? She pointed out that the education program already exists in these four countries. The approach has been "to work with mission-aligned university professors who are already interested in Wikipedia as a teaching tool as small pilots. Drs Nidal Yousef (Jordan), Fareh Abdelhak (Algeria), and Mohammed Alghbban and Sami Ben Salamh (Saudi Arabia) have partnered with us this last term." In Algeria, LiAnna said, Dr Fareh is very involved with the free software movement, ... and his students last term added an impressive 1.6 million bytes of content to the Arabic Wikipedia; "in other words, one class in Algeria added nearly the same amount content to the Arabic Wikipedia as seven classes did in the Cairo pilot." Independent programs in Saudi had been in progress, and Drs Sami and Mohammed, who run the Wikipedia Arabic Translation Project, sponsored by their university, "simply joined forces with us. Last year they created a Wikipedia Training Center for Translation on campus. Both professors joined the Education Workshop in Milan at the chapters meeting, "so they've also had the opportunity to collaborate with others in our movement."
Oxford MPhil and former Rhodes Scholar Anasuya Sengupta was recruited to the key role of senior director of grantmaking just one year ago. We first expressed surprise to her that the annual plan revealed grantmaking overheads to be projected at 28% in the coming year, almost twice the rate as for other foundations that engage regularly in international grantmaking. She pointed out that the number itself, for all grantmaking agencies, depends very much on the way it is calculated. (It does seem that the Foundation might have used different methods of calculation, given its unique circumstances and the decision to exclude from the calculations the WMF's bid for nearly half of the FDC's funding.)
What is clear is that individual grants are administratively expensive, and that the FDC is still at an early stage of development and involves intensive face-to-face interactions: "very few international foundations give individual grants, which are highly resource-intensive (of the 89 grants we gave over 2012–13, 43 were grants to individuals for projects, events and travel)." In addition, there is the start-up cost of "investing in an open-source back-end grants management software (capital expenditure), and the addition of two staff positions for grants and governance."
Anasuya Sengupta said that "some US-based public foundations that give out 8–10 million dollars in international grants, have at least 70 staff engaged in the process", compared with the 10 staff doing so at the WMF. She emphasised that WMF grantmaking is central to "implementing a Global South strategy, facilitating conversations on the Gender Gap, and doing research, learning and evaluation that supports all of these processes. That makes us pretty effective and efficient, I think. We are committed, nonetheless, to keeping a close watch on our costs relative to our expenditures, and reporting back to the community regularly."
A new strategy for addressing issues surrounding the global south (currently 5% of grantmaking) and the 90–10 gender gap will be to focus on selected geographies and languages with high potential and by encouraging the increased participation of female contributors, at least partly through grantmaking. We asked whether grantmaking will explicitly favour these agendas. Not favouring, but soliciting, Sengupta responded: "All our grantmaking programs evaluate grant proposals strictly on their merits, and will continue to do so." However, the WMF will be reaching out, "proactively encouraging such proposals to be submitted in the first place. ... a proposal that actually addresses the gender gap [will be rated higher], all other things being equal, than one that doesn't." She emphasised that this will also apply to the focus on selected geographies and languages of the global south, but that all grant applications must "stand competitively alongside others in our global processes", and that feedback from communities will be important in developing these strategies. "To offer our readers the sum total of all human knowledge, we need to strengthen the presence and active participation of women contributors and global South communities."
In view of the increased attention to language translation (one extra dedicated employee in 2013–14), we took the opportunity to ask Garfield Byrd, chief of finance and administration, whether the Foundation is prepared to commit resources to the prompt and accurate translation of the annual plan itself (or key parts of it) into other languages. He stated: "I am hoping that some key parts of the annual plan can be translated and the Foundation is prepared to commit resources to this task."
In brief
- World's largest encyclopedia meets the world’s largest medical library: Following the Signpost's story on the English Wikipedia's medical collaborations two weeks ago, a National Institutes of Health blog post published this week focused attention on the ongoing collaborations between WikiProject Medicine and the institutes' PubMed initiative.
- New chapter affiliate: By resolution of the Foundation's Board of Trustees, Wikimedia Uruguay is now a fully fledged chapter affiliate. The chapters are legally independent organizations set up to promote the interests of the Wikimedia movement on a local basis; as such, nearly all of them operate within and are separated by the borders of different nation-states.
- Engineering report: The June Wikimedia engineering report has been published on Meta.
- Wikivoyage logo: Submissions for the new Wikivoyage logo are still being accepted on Meta.
- Controversial topics: Gawker has published a list of the ten most controversial topics on Wikipedia, gleaned from a study where Taha Yasseri and a team of researchers defined controversiality by "summing the weights of all mutually reverting editor pairs, excluding the topmost pair, and multiplying this number by the total number of editors involved in the article." On the list are many articles long-time Wikipedians will recognize: at the top is George W. Bush, while among the most unusual is "List of World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. employees" (most likely List of WWE personnel).
- Most interesting article lead: Foreign Policy's Passport blog asked its readers if the lead section of Adrian Carton de Wiart was the "most interesting opening paragraph Wikipedia's ever published?" Wiart fought in three wars, where he was "shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip and ear, survived a plane crash, tunneled out of a POW camp, and bit off his own fingers when a doctor wouldn't amputate them." Reportedly, Wiart later said of his experiences: "frankly I had enjoyed the war."
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Documents and sports
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Featured articles
Four featured articles were promoted this week.
- Military service of Ian Smith (nom), nominated by Cliftonian. The future prime minister of Rhodesia served with the British Royal Air Force in the Second World War, something that helped him earn support in his subsequent career as a politician.
- Horse Protection Act of 1970 (nom), nominated by Dana boomer and Montanabw. This United States federal law outlawed the "soring" of horses, which made the horses step higher for show ring competitions, but was extremely painful for the animals.
- Harold Davidson (nom), nominated by Brianboulton. Davidson was a priest in the Church of England who was defrocked due to a sex scandal. He died at the claws and teeth of a circus lion.
- Norman conquest of England (nom), nominated by Ealdgyth. The invasion of England by a Norman army cemented William the Conqueror's control of England, and is considered by some historians a turning point in the history of the Western hemisphere thanks to the radical changes made in the years immediately succeeding the conquest.
Featured lists
Five featured lists were promoted this week.
- List of NK Maribor players (nom) nominated by Ratipok. Association football club NK Maribor was founded in 1960. The team competes at the highest level of association football in Slovenia.
- 81st Academy Awards (nom) nominated by Birdienest81. The 81st Academy Awards for films released in 2008 were awarded in 24 categories. Slumdog Millionaire won Best Picture. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Dark Knight and Milk also earned awards in the ceremony.
- The Verve discography (nom) nominated by Sufur222. British alternative rock band The Verve has released four studio albums, two compilation albums and fourteen singles across their twenty-year career. Their album Urban Hymns received much praise and several platinum certifications.
- Girls' Generation discography (nom) nominated by Raykyogrou0. South Korean girl group Girls' Generation has released a number of popular albums and singles. Their single "Gee" was the "Song of the Decade" for the 2000s in South Korea. Starting in 2007 with Girls' Generation, the group has sold more than 5 million physical albums and more than 40 million singles.
- List of songs in Glee (season 1) (nom) nominated by Robin. American television series Glee focuses on the William McKinley High School glee club. Many cover versions of songs are performed by the characters. Show creator Ryan Murphy is responsible for selecting all of the songs used.
Featured pictures
Sixteen featured pictures were promoted this week.
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- Petra Martić (nom) created and nominated by Diliff. Martić (born 1991) is a Croatian professional tennis player. On 11 June 2012 her world ranking was 42nd. She has career records of 132–91 in singles and 50–39 in doubles.
- Felis silvestris silvestris (nom) created by Lviatour and nominated by Tomer T. The European wildcat (Felis silvestris silvestris) is naturally found in Europe, Turkey, and in the Caucasus mountains. Their populations have significantly declined or become extinct in some areas.
- Chat Flycatcher (nom) created by Yathin sk and nominated by Nikhilb239. The Chat Flycatcher (Bradornis infuscatus) is a bird species found in some African savannas. This photo was taken in Etosha National Park, Namibia.
- R. V. C. Bodley (nom), unknown photographer, restored by Adam Cuerden and nominated by TCO. Colonel Ronald Victor Courtenay (R. V. C.) Bodley (1892 – 1970) was a British army officer and later an author. He was appointed assistant military attaché to Paris on 15 August 1918 and attended the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. Discouraged by what he heard at the Conference, he left the military and went to live with the Arabs in the Sahara desert. His book Wind in the Sahara, published in 1944, covered his experiences there. He also traveled around the Pacific and wrote The Drama in the Pacific.
- Check used for the Alaska Purchase (nom) created by Edouard de Stoeckl and William H. Seward, and nominated by Crisco 1492. The Alaska Purchase by the United States from the Russian Empire in 1867 was received with mixed political reviews in the United States, with some commentators deriding it as Seward's Folly in a reference to U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward. Public opinion changed after the Klondike Gold Strike of 1896. Alaska was later discovered to have valuable oil deposits and had strategic significance during the 20th Century "Cold War".
- Kei Nishikori (nom) created and nominated by Diliff. Kei Nishikori (born 1989) is a Japanese tennis player. His world ranking is 12th as of 8 July 2013. His career singles record is 123–83.
- Katie Green (nom) created by NGUYEN DINH Quoc-Huy, cropped and nominated by Keraunoscopia. Katie Green (born 1987) is an English model. For a time she represented the Ultimo lingerie brand until she violated her contract by being photographed topless. She has campaigned against "size zero" models. Company magazine in the United Kingdom named her one of the 12 most inspirational women of 2008.
- Tilework on the Dome of the Rock (nom) created by Godot13 and nominated by Indefatigable2. A tile is a manufactured piece of hard material such as glass or ceramic that is usually placed in a pattern on a surface such as a floor, wall, or ceiling. The tilework shown in this photograph is from the mid-16th century on the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.
- Cardinal Richelieu (nom) created by Philippe de Champaigne and nominated by Adam Cuerden. Armand Jean du Plessis, cardinal-duc de Richelieu et de Fronsac (1585 – 1642) was a French clergyman and politician. He became a Roman Catholic cardinal in 1622 and King Louis XIII's chief minister in 1624.
- Official Apollo 11 Crew Photo (nom) created by NASA and nominated by Indefatigable2. Apollo 11 was a NASA mission to the Earth's moon. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first humans to walk on the moon. A third astronaut, Michael Collins, remained in the orbiting command module during the lunar landing of the Eagle module. After stepping on the surface of the moon, Armstrong famously said, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind". The a was not heard in the original radio signal but recent analysis shows that it may have been obscured by static.
- Irfan Kolothum Thodi (nom) created by Muhammad Mahdi Karim and nominated by Keraunoscopia. Irfan Kolothum Thodi (born 1990) is an Indian athlete. He finished in 10th place and set the Indian national record for the 20 kilometer walk at the 2012 Summer Olympics with a time of 1:20:21.
- Doleschallia bisaltide (nom) created and nominated by Arctic Kangaroo. Doleschallia bisaltide, commonly known as the Autumn Leaf or Leafwing, is a butterfly found in India, Australia, and Singapore. This photograph was taken near Singapore Changi Airport.
- United States Declaration of Independence (nom) created by Thomas Jefferson and the Continental Congress and nominated by Indefatigable2. The United States Declaration of Independence was first drafted by Thomas Jefferson and adopted with modifications by the Continental Congress. The Declaration announced that the thirteen colonies of the United States considered themselves to be independent of the British Empire. There are multiple versions of the declaration, and the most famous version is found today at the United States National Archives. The body of Declaration includes the statement, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The document has influenced other declarations of independence throughout the world.
- California Tule Fog (nom) created by NASA MODIS and nominated by Tatiraju.rishabh. Tule fog is a thick ground fog in parts of California. It is named for the tule grass wetlands and is noted for contributing to weather-related motor vehicle accidents.
- Magna Carta (nom) created by Barons and King John of England and nominated by Indefatigable2. The Great Charter (Latin Magna Carta) was issued in the year 1215. It is the first document that was forced onto a king of England by a group of his subjects. The Charter forms an important piece in the historical development of constitutional law in the English-speaking world, since many former British colonies adapted English law for their own use.
- The Ruins of Holyrood Chapel (nom) created by Louis Daguerre and nominated by Keraunoscopia. The Ruins of Holyrood Chapel is an oil on canvas painting by French artist Louis Daguerre. It was completed circa 1824. It depicts the ruins of Holyrood Abbey in Scotland, a scheduled monument. Today the painting is exhibited at Walker Art Gallery, England.
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Kiefer.Wolfowitz and Ironholds case opens; July 22 deadline for checkuser and oversight applications
The case Kiefer.Wolfowitz and Ironholds was opened. Voting on the Tea Party movement case continued, after a failed attempt at moderated discussion. A group tasked with deciding the content of the lead section of the Jerusalem article has reported back to the committee. Applications for checkuser and oversight permissions close on 22 July.
Open cases
This case, brought by Mark Arsten, involves a dispute between Kiefer Wolfowitz and Ironholds, the original account of Wikimedia Foundation employee Oliver Keyes, that began on-wiki and escalated in off-wiki forums, ending with statements that could be interpreted as threats of violence. The evidence phase of the case closes 26 July, the workshop closes 2 August, and a proposed decision is scheduled to be posted 9 August 2013.
This case involving an American political group, brought by KillerChihuahua, is now unsuspended, after a moderated discussion failed to agree on the ground rules for such a discussion.
Two additional findings of fact currently have enough votes to pass: that there was no misconduct on the part of KillerChihuahua, and that the current sanctions, which prohibit “more than one (1) revert on the same content per twenty-four (24) hour period" are inadequate.
Other requests and committee action
- Clarification request: Scientology: A clarification request was brought by User:Sandstein in response to an ongoing discussion at WP:ANI#Abuse of admin powers and Violation of WP:INVOLVED by User:Sandstein. The request seeks to clarify the role of discretionary sanctions and outing after discretionary sanctions for the ‘’Scientology’’ case were applied to two editors who posted a link on Sandstein’s talk page to an old Arbcom case that contained the previous username of Prioryman.
- Clarification and amendment request: Syrian civil war articles: A request was made by Greyshark09 for a 1RR restriction to prevent edit warring. The sanctions for WP:ARBPIA (Arab-Israeli conflict) are currently being applied to the topic area.
- Applications for checkuser and oversight to close 22 July: The committee is looking for applications for checkuser and oversight permissions, with special encouragement for those who already have one permission to apply for the other. Users who frequent IRC channels are also particularly encouraged to apply. Applicants must be over 18, willing to identify to the foundation, and already be administrators on the English Wikipedia. For more information see the appointments page.
- Mandated dispute resolution for Jerusalem: A group tasked with deciding the content of the lead section of the Jerusalem article has reported back to the committee. A January 2013 motion by the committee appointed three uninvolved, experienced editors, along with a moderator, to assist the community in holding a discussion over the content, with the decision to be binding for three years. The paragraph selected is "Jerusalem, located on a plateau in the Judean Mountains between the Mediterranean and Dead Seas, is one of the oldest cities in the world. It is considered holy to the three major Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Israelis and Palestinians both claim Jerusalem as their capital, as Israel maintains its primary governmental institutions there and the State of Palestine ultimately foresees it as its seat of power; however, neither claim is widely recognized internationally."
Inactive
The Race and politics case, brought by UseTheCommandLine and dealing with sourcing methods in articles pertaining to race politics, has been suspended for a two-month period beginning 26 May 2013, to see if an editor central to the case will return to editing.
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