Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2014-01-15
Wikimedia Germany asks for "reworking" of Funds Dissemination Committee; should MP4 be allowed on Wikimedia sites?
German chapter asks for "constructive dialogue" with FDC
Wikimedia Germany (WMDE), the largest national affiliate, has authored an extensive critique of the Funds Dissemination Committee's process for issuing funding recommendations for the various large organizations in the movement.
The FDC is a major component in the Foundation’s global grantmaking apparatus, within the organization's annual plan grants. Composed entirely of volunteers and supported by WMF staff, the FDC makes recommendations to the Foundation's Board of Trustees on funding levels for large Wikimedia entities. In the most recent round, WMF staff assessment scores for the 11 affiliates (10 of them national chapters) were largely positive, though they came with significant criticism. Four returning chapters' scores were sharply reduced compared with those a year ago—for the UK, Germany, Switzerland, and Israel. This year's FDC recommendations saw no affiliate receive all of its requested funding, with cuts of 6–70% to initial requests; even so, the amounts awarded to returning applicants were mostly significant increases over last year's allocations.
While the FDC recommended that WMDE receive €1,296,000 for its first round (2013–14; two rounds per year), the chapter had requested €1,800,000—losing roughly a quarter of its original request. The staff assessment, while downgrading WMDE's score from an enviable 53 last year to 44 this year (falling significantly in ratings of "impact", "ability to execute", and "measures of success"), detailed extensive risks in WMDE's budget proposal, including its planned staffing:
| “ | WMDE is planning to hire nine new positions in addition to increasing two positions to full-time status, bringing total staff to 51.45 part- and full-time staff. Adding US$742,500 in staffing cost seems neither prudent nor sustainable, given its current revenue plan. Only one of nine new positions is for its new focus area of software development, and five are devoted to evaluation, communications, and administration. This raises questions about how this staff growth corresponds to WMDE’s new focus areas. ... / ... Nine employees and more than [$1M] are to be allocated to the Volunteer Support program, but this significant investment may not have commensurate impact on the Wikimedia projects, especially considering WMDE’s mixed record in past community support work (for example, Fact Check and the community budget have had uneven results and response). ... / ... WMDE is not always forthcoming with sharing its challenges and lessons learned in its reports. | ” |
WMDE's message to the FDC focused on what they see as three key "risks" inherent in the FDC's approach to this round of funding.
- With all of the chapters not receiving their requested funding, WMDE believes that this could lead to inflated requests, where chapters would ask for far more than actually desired in the hope they will get all they desire.
- More seriously, WMDE critiqued the FDC's recommendations, which in their view reduced the funding requests without giving sufficient cause. "In general, it is not clear from the FDC’s explanations of its decisions what applicants should have done differently in order to receive the full funding amount. Its explanations often mention the 'growth rate', but how does one define healthy growth and unhealthy growth?", said WMDE. "It is difficult to grasp why a budget has been described as 'large' or certain metrics as 'poor' if no frame of reference is given. This prevents the entities in question—as well as future applicants—from learning from their previous mistakes."
- Applying only to WMDE's funding request for this year, the last point emphasized that the FDC cut WMDE's request because, in part, it had not spent all of the funding granted in the year previous. Continuing such practices with other chapters could lead to an "end-of-year spending frenzy" from chapters unwilling to lose money.
Other complaints range from "inappropriate expectations" of small and/or young chapters and organizations, with the argument that they are currently held to the standards of the established chapters, and the expanded bureaucracy such an accountable process requires. Piggybacking on their desire to cut through the red tape is the issue of the FDC applications themselves: "An unbelievable amount of effort goes into this entire process—on the part of the chapter, the WMF and the FDC", WMDE stated. "Do we have any statistics on the number of staff and volunteer hours ... that the process entails?"
Wikimedia Germany's "way forward" combines "reworking" and simplifying the process with finding a "joint and truly global strategy that has been accepted by all members", a line that has received little comment but would presumably decentralize the Wikimedia grantmaking structure by requiring agreement from major players. The message closed with an invitation to the upcoming Wikimedia Conference with the aim of a "thorough reworking of the FDC process."
Reception to the proposal on its talk page ranged from Pundit faulting the German chapter in a bulleted list, noting that they did not mention that many of the chapters received more money than the year before and did not list what WMDE thought of as the FDC's "mistakes", though also praising the chapter for remarking on the amount of bureaucratic overhead. Jan-Bart de Vreede, the chair of the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees, commented that "I might not agree with all of [the feedback], but it is very useful to have nonetheless ... [an] evaluation [of the FDC process] is currently planned at the end of May. [WMDE's executive director] is a member of this group so I have no concerns that the experiences described here will get lost somewhere." Kevin Gorman remarked that "It's great to see sincere, good faith engagement between major movement entities about serious matters such as the FDC."
WMF looks to allow MP4 uploads to Wikimedia projects
The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) has asked for comment (RfC) on the future of video formats in the Wikimedia movement. The RfC, which as of publication is failing, asks participants about the use of MP4 videos, which is the most popular video format used today and is prevalent on sites such as YouTube and Vimeo, but the use of it is encumbered by patents, and license arrangements would have to be made with MPEG-LA. The RfC asks the community to give opinions on whether to move forward with some steps: embracing MP4 in some form for uploaded files, transcoding them to open formats, or some combination of these.
If implemented in full, the change would allow the uploading and viewing of freely licensed MP4 videos on Wikimedia projects; there are also options to only allow their viewing or uploading.
Such a change has been prominent in the planning of the Foundation's multimedia team, because despite Wikimedia, Mozilla and Google's efforts, free video formats have yet to enjoy widespread use:
| “ | One of the major reasons why there are so few videos on Wikimedia sites is that we do not support the widespread MP4 standard. Instead, we rely on the lesser-known Ogg Theora and WebM standards, whose user base is vastly outnumbered by the many users of MP4 around the world. ... about 150 million of our users are still unable to view open video files on their browsers. For mobile phones and tablets, there is no practical way to play Ogg or WebM videos on the very popular iPhone and iPad devices, and only some phones can play WebM files. / By contrast, MP4 is installed by default on most mobile devices and desktop computers, typically including hardware support that is much more efficient than software solutions for video encoding and decoding. | ” |
Surprisingly, the proposal falls far short of what might potentially have been put to the community. A key part of the request—perhaps lost in the lengthy textual background—is that uploaded MP4 videos would be stored in both MP4 and a free file format, such as WebM or Ogg Theora. If the vote is successful, the Foundation has committed to developing tools that would convert uploaded files from MP4 to a free format, and vice versa.
However, the proposal faces significant opposition from Wikimedia users. The MP4 format is not free software; some of the patents on it will not expire until 2028. Their position is summarized by the Foundation as an ideological conflict: "They view MP4 support as a fundamental shift in our values—and a major setback for the open and free software movements. They are prepared to stick with the current status quo, even if this means that millions of users are unable to view or contribute MP4 video content on our sites." Martijn Hoekstra commented that adding patented formats to Wikimedia sites means stepping back from the goal of being a free repository, while darkweasel94 went farther: "We should apply pressure on others to support free formats, not surrender to others' pressure to support patent-encumbered formats. It's already bad enough that Firefox is going to support it—we don't need Wikimedia to become yet another traitor to the movement (free software/free culture, broadly construed). Then the companies with an interest in MP4 can really declare their victory."
Other opponents were far more pragmatic. Geni was the first to oppose the vote, quoting a camera manual's stipulations on recording in MP4 and contrasting it with the free CC-by-SA standard: "This product is licensed under AT&T patents for the MPEG-4 standard and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under AT&T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video. No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4 standard."
In brief
- Wikipedia, Wikivoyage birthdays: On 15 January, Wikipedia turned 13 and Wikivoyage marked the first anniversary of its reincarnation under the Wikimedia Foundation.
- English Wikipedia
- Quarterly update: The quarterly update consisting of all changes to the English Wikipedia's content policies has been published at Wikipedia:Update. Volunteers to restart updates of deletion and enforcement policies are requested.
- Pending changes: The request for comment on pending changes, level two—a function that is not actually described on the relevant Wikipedia page—is steadily lengthening, with 11 proposals.
- Surveillance awareness day: English Wikipedians are hoping to take "special steps" with the main page's content to promote awareness of intrusive surveillance mechanisms that have been put in place around the world, but the idea has received significant resistance from community members.
- The Great Book of Knowledge, Part 1: A CBC Radio One program with moderator Paul Kennedy and contributor Philip Coulter explored Wikipedia's effect on the world. Part 2 will be aired next week.
- Foundation and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF): The Wikimedia Foundation's legal counsel, in consultation with community members, has authored a blog post on the EFF's website exploring the importance of the public domain on Wikimedia projects (see related Signpost op-ed: "Why the year 2019 is so important").
- Wikimania 2015: Bids for Wikimania 2015 have opened. There are currently five open unofficial bids: three in Africa, one in Europe, and one in Asia.
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Architecture Summit schedule published
The proposed schedule for the MediaWiki Architecture Summit (see previous Signpost coverage) has been published. The two main plenary sessions will be about HTML templating, and Service-oriented architecture.
Not to be confused with wikitext templates, the HTML templating cluster discusses creating a framework for the generation of user interface elements:
- HTML templating library, submitted by Kaldari, proposes using a template system that can be used in both the PHP backend and via JavaScript for client-side usage.
- MVC framework, submitted by Owyn, discusses the MVC framework Wikia wrote for templating, called Nirvana.
- OutputPage refactor, also submitted by Owyn, discusses the changes Wikia has made in their fork of the OutputPage class, which controls the generation of the HTML needed for viewing a page.
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. Content incorporated from Tech News.
- MP4 Video: RfC on whether to enable support for uploading/using/providing video in the MP4 format.
- The orange "You have new messages" bar will now be displayed for users who have JavaScript disabled (bugzilla:56974)
- Updates to special pages: Special:DoubleRedirects, Special:UncategorizedPages, Special:WantedCategories, and other cached special pages should have fresh results and will update once a month. (bugzilla:15434)
- Search issues: New pages and changes were not being reflected in search results from January 6 to 14. (bugzilla:59979)
- Wikidata support for Wikisource: Language links for Wikisource can now be added via Wikidata. (announcement)
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Licensed for reuse? Citing open-access sources in Wikipedia articles
- The views expressed in this op-ed are those of the author only; responses and critical commentary are invited in the comments section. The Signpost welcomes proposals for op-eds at our opinion desk.
It is heavily ironic that two decades after the World Wide Web was started—largely to make it easier to share scholarly research—most of our past and present research publications are still hidden behind paywalls for private profit. The bitter twist is that the vast majority of this research is publicly funded, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars worldwide each year.
This has placed Wikipedia in an awkward position with respect to its verifiability policy: "all material in Wikipedia mainspace, including everything in articles, lists and captions, must be verifiable [so that] people reading and editing the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source." Combined with the policy on identifying reliable sources, the paywall dilemma faced by editors and readers becomes clearer: "many Wikipedia articles rely on scholarly material. When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources." Not only this, none of the academic journals most cited on the English Wikipedia are open access (PLOS ONE breaks the drought at No. 22 on that list).
While WP:PAYWALL advises: "Do not reject sources just because they are hard or costly to access". Commenting on a draft proposal that Wikipedia articles should preferentially cite open-access literature, one editor wrote that "verifiability isn't an option if people are expected to pay in excess of $20 to view a single article ... over closed- or toll-access resources of equivalent scholarly quality". That draft proposal—started in 2007 when the English Wikipedia was half its current age—died quietly like so many.
But what if we could just mark references as being open, rather than preferentially citing them over closed ones? WikiProject Open Access is currently exploring the options, and the Workgroup on Open Access Metadata and Indicators (OAMI) at the National Information Standards Organization has been working on a set of recommendations for how to provide information about the use and re-use rights of scholarly articles. A draft version was released last week, and public comments are invited until 4 February.
These recommendations boil down to two metadata tags:
<free_to_read>, which signals whether and when a publication is available publicly without a requirement for payment or registration, and<license_ref>, which points to a stable place on the web containing the licensing terms applicable to that publication.
The recommendations don't include:
- a definition of the term open access;
- specifications as to which licensing terms would be acceptable, or whether and how they should be version-controlled; and
- suggestions for icons that may be suitable for signalling the content of the proposed tags.
Similar recommendations have been put forward in a more broadly scoped draft report from Jisc, the UK body that supports senior-high-school and higher education. The draft had been was released for public comment in September, and its final version is still being worked on. A related report from the Confederation of Open Access Repositories looked at components of license clauses in use by scholarly publishers.
One of the organisations involved in the NISO Workgroup is CrossRef, which is working on including the proposed tags into their metadata and making that information available through their API, in collaboration with the Directory of Open Access Journals. The Open Article Gauge, developed by Cottage Labs with support from the Public Library of Science (PLOS), already provides article-level information about licensing terms for a subset of the scholarly literature; PLOS has signalled an interest in implementing a system that would provide licensing information for references cited in articles published in its journals, which are among the most well-known open-access journals.
The NISO document contains a scenario quite similar to searching for illustrations for use in Wikipedia articles:
| “ | A user wishes to use visual images from an article, either in a single case or in some automated re-use pipeline. Acting in good faith, the user seeks licensing information, e.g., at PubMed Central or a similar source, to ascertain his/her rights. However, in some cases the article licensing metadata is contradictory or incorrect. For example, an article might be properly licensed under CC BY, but the publisher (or whoever is adding metadata) is making conflicting licensing statements or identifies other restrictions not provided for in the license.1 | ” |
The reference 1 (broken in the NISO document) refers to the November 2012 open-access report (part of the Wikimedia GLAM newsletter), which lists examples of such conflicting licensing statements and served as the basis for a more detailed analysis published and presented last October.
It is the potential for these kinds of incongruencies that motivated the NISO group to opt for signalling only the stable home (the URI) of the licensing terms and not individual use and re-use rights. Many publishers use licensing terms incompatible with Creative Commons licenses, and to understand their implications, Wikipedia users might need legal assistance; this makes it difficult to see how signalling those terms (other than perhaps by way of {{closed access}} or {{subscription required}}) would incur any benefit to those users.
The case is different for Creative Commons licenses: their URI (e.g. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) already signals re-use rights, making it easy to implement the <license_ref>, while their corresponding <free_to_read> tag can always be set to "yes", and compatibility with the NISO recommendations would be ensured.
On Wikimedia sites, a number of external link icons are already in use that act on certain elements of a URI—for example, a lock icon for HTTPS, as in https://www.eff.org/copyrightweek (which is this week, a period of action around copyright, organised by the Electronic Frontier Foundation). So having the CC BY icon displayed right next to external links that contain the string "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/" would be straightforward. Once the licensing information is available via the CrossRef API, a link to the appropriate CC URI could be added automatically to template-based references (e.g. by way of Citation bot, which was migrated to Wikimedia Labs last weekend).
Since Wikidata has enabled phase I support for Wikisource on Tuesday, it would even be possible to link to the full text available from Wikisource (see also the Wikisource vision) and to the corresponding Wikidata entry, as demonstrated in the reference. Of course, there is room to economise on space, such as by linking the icons directly rather than adjacent text bits, and if the article is covered on other Wikimedia platforms (e.g. Wikiquote, Wikinews, Wikispecies), the corresponding links could be included as well.
Currently, Wikidata items can be created for sources supporting statements on Wikidata, but the details of whether and how other sources (e.g. those supporting statements in a Wikipedia or Wikibooks page) are to be handled—or whether Citation bot should be ported to Wikidata—remain yet to be worked out. Two taskforces have been created to work on this: one for books and one for periodicals.
Irrespective of the details, I think that if Wikipedia articles were to signal the openness of scholarly references they cite, this would go a long way towards raising awareness of open licensing among users of Wikimedia content, amplifying similar efforts by open-access publishers and even Google, whose image search by re-use rights (available since 2009) was simplified this week.
References
- ^ a b Williams, J. T.; Carpenter, K. E.; Van Tassell, J. L.; Hoetjes, P.; Toller, W.; Etnoyer, P.; Smith, M. (2010). Gratwicke, Brian (ed.). "Biodiversity Assessment of the Fishes of Saba Bank Atoll, Netherlands Antilles". PLOS ONE. 5 (5): e10676. Bibcode:2010PLoSO...510676W. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0010676. PMC 2873961. PMID 20505760.
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Is Google hurting Wikipedia traffic?; "Wikipedia-Mania" in the New York Times
Is Google hurting Wikipedia's traffic?
Several media outlets have recently reported on a Wikipediocracy post that linked Wikipedia's decline in readership to Google's Knowledge Graph. Google's application places snippets of relevant information on the side of search results, much of which is taken from Wikipedia. Individuals looking for information on a subject may be less likely to click through to an article if the information is provided in search results. The Daily Dot asks "Is Google accidentally killing Wikipedia?" The Register links Google's use of Knowledge Graph to its alleged antitrust activities being investigated by the European Commission. Non-US sources covering the story include de Volkskrant, Corriere della Sera, Cubic Pro, Web Wereld, HWSW, Abondance, and The Times of India.
Wikipedia-Mania
The New York Times (8 January 2014) published a lengthy article on Wikipedia by Judith Newman, asking Wikipedia, What Does Judith Newman Have to Do to Get a Page? Written in a humorous style, the article described Newman's (mock?) frustration with the fact that she did not have a Wikipedia biography (a fact since remedied). Newman also offered some criticism of Wikipedia's editorial policies and internal culture – quoting among others Wiki-PR chief executive Michael French, who told her:
| “ | ... one client said to me that dealing with the Wikipedians is like walking into a mental hospital: the floors are carpeted, the walls are nicely padded, but you know there’s a pretty good chance at any given moment one of the inmates will pick up a knife. | ” |
She also asked French about the recent sockpuppeting scandal his company has been involved in (see previous Signpost coverage here, here and here). French said,
| “ | Wikipedia is historically very anti-commercial, and we’re the biggest company being paid for consulting, so we became the target. There is not an official policy against it, but the idea of having paid editors is very divisive within the Wikipedia ranks. If you think of it, it’s not surprising: there are thousands and thousands of people volunteering to do these pages. But many have an agenda, whether they are paid or not. | ” |
Newman did not seem to have a problem with the fact that there were Wikipedia consultants editing for money:
| “ | As someone whose preferred method of tackling any problem is to throw money at it, I’m actually very glad there are Wikipedia consultants. They may hype things? Oh, boohoo. I see how friends who stay under the radar are constantly burnishing their reputations in ways large and small. And all it takes is a couple of unpaid but Internet-savvy interns to do the spin doctoring that has become so common among politicians. Moreover, many pages have such an odd or inaccurate beginning that you have to be truly famous or notorious for that page to have enough devotees to massage it into usefulness. | ” |
And she said that she loved the idea of crowdsourcing:
| “ | I love the idea of crowdsourcing; I love the notion that amid the jokesters and provocateurs, there are thousands of dedicated souls trying their best to arrive at some semblance of truth, even if that truth involves, say, the varieties of historical Christian hairstyles. (The marauding barbarians? Mullets?) | ” |
In brief
- Vandals: BuzzFeed (2 January 2014) had a list of spectacular acts of Wikipedia vandalism.
- Loins: Slate (8 January 2014) took a look at Wikipedia's articles on genitals, and discussed the impact of the gender gap on how these articles are written. The author also managed to contact an anonymous exhibitionist who is excited that his penis is featured in Wikipedia … and that his is now "the fourth when you search penis on google images".
- No biography for Abby Martin: Weblog The Dissenting Democrat (12 January 2014) wondered why RT journalist Abby Martin does not have a Wikipedia biography. (Her entry currently redirects to RT (TV network).)
- Wikipedia pages for small businesses: The Miami Herald (13 January 2014) offered advice on how small businesses should go about getting a Wikipedia page.
- Wikipedia's 13th birthday: Mashable, The Wire and Business Insider (15 January 2014) published articles celebrating Wikipedia's 13th birthday.
- Sarah Stierch: The recent departure of Sarah Stierch from the Wikimedia Foundation was covered by The Daily Dot, Ars Technica, The Independent (UK), The Irish Independent, WebProNews, The Times of India and a number of news outlets in other languages than English.
- German study: Covert PR in Wikipedia: German journalist Marvin Oppong published a study on covert PR editing in Wikipedia. The study is being vigorously discussed in the German Wikipedia, on the Kurier's talk page.
Reader comments
The Hours are Ours
Thanks to Atlasowa, we now have a tool that enables us to see traffic at far higher resolution; not just day by day, but hour by hour. This means we can get a far more accurate picture of which short surges in popularity are likely natural and which are not, and frankly, it couldn't have come at a better time, since there were a lot of anomalous entries this week, most stacked helpfully near the top of the list. A side effect of this new perspective is that I will have to start including articles that fit the natural profile, even if I have no idea why they're there. So say hello to the new, less decisive, more inclusive Traffic Report.
For the full top 25 report, including exclusions, see WP:TOP25
For the week of 5–11 January, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most viewed pages* were:
Rank Article Class Views Image Notes 1 Jordan Belfort 
526,424 Onetime stockbroker who spent 22 months in prison for running a penny stock boiler room, he went on to write the books that the film The Wolf of Wall Street is based on. Yes, he did actually call himself "The Wolf of Wall Street". 2 Zora Neale Hurston 
493,678 
The famed early 20th century chronicler of black American folklore (including Hoodoo and the stories that inspired Uncle Remus) got a Google Doodle on her would-have-been 113th birthday on January 7 3 Polar vortex 
477,713 
Despite being known about for years, the polar vortex became a buzzword overnight when it gallumphed onto the lower 48 this week, bringing its home clime to places less appreciative of its charms. 4 Sherlock (TV series) 
473,438 
The contemporary-set revamp of the Sherlock Holmes mythos has become a surprise global hit (and turned its star, Benedict Cumberbatch into an international sex symbol) and is now watched in 200 countries and territories (out of 254), so it's not surprising that its much ballyhooed return from a two-year hiatus was met with feverish anticipation. 5 Alliance (Firefly)
456,430 Why this Sino-American union of space opera overlords from the cult series Firefly suddenly gained nearly half a million views in just 16 hours I have yet to determine, but it does appear to have happened without robotic aid. 6 Simone de Beauvoir
447,882 The French foundational feminist and existentialist got a Google Doodle on her would-have-been 95th birthday 7 Facebook
434,746 
A perennially popular article 8 The Wolf of Wall Street (2013 film)
419,781 Martin Scorsese's acclaimed account of one person's contribution to our general economic misery opened to a respectable $34 million on Christmas Day, and has gone on to gross nearly $100 million. 9 List of Doctor Who serials List 386,922 With the Christmas special over, people are looking forward to the new season next autumn. 10 Dennis Rodman
363,203 If there's one thing this five-time NBA Champion and two-time NBA All-Star knows other than basketball, it's how to draw attention to himself. Whether he's marrying himself, crotch-kicking cameramen, or stepping out on the Chicago Bulls midway the NBA Finals to go wrestling with Hulk Hogan, this guy is living proof that there is no such thing as bad publicity. Until now, perhaps. In 2013, he began making trips to North Korea, entertaining its basketball-mad dictator, Kim Jong-Un. After saying publicly that he would speak to him on behalf of jailed US citizen Kenneth Bae, Rodman backed down, and said that Bae was responsible for his incarceration. Upon returning to the US this week, he apologised for the comment, claiming he had been drunk.
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WikiProject Sociology
- The January Guild of Copy Editors backlog elimination drive is underway
- The two month long Articles for Creation Drive continues this month, so get busy!
This week, we studied human social behavior with the folks at WikiProject Sociology. Started in December 2004, WikiProject Sociology has grown to include 2 Featured and 48 Good Articles, including the project's core article. The project oversees the Social Movements Task Force and a variety of lists of articles that need attention. We interviewed Meclee, Piotrus, and DASonnenfeld.
- What motivated you to join WikiProject Sociology? Do you have an academic or professional background in sociology? Have you contributed to any of the project's Good or Featured Articles?
- Meclee: I was motivated by running across several articles with a wide range of competency in coverage on the topic of social complexity. So, I made suggestions to merge and followed through with a thorough re-write of one article on the topic. I next saw a request to do some editing in the area of social networks, and after participating in a discussion on issues, performed a split and re-write of that article.During the course of writing those articles, I began to notice that quite a few sociology articles were in need of attention. I am an academic (currently) sociologist who does more teaching than publication of research these days, so thought that editing Wikipedia was a good use of my time.
- Piotrus: I joined this WikiProject nearly a decade ago as a graduate student in sociology; now I am an assistant professor in the field. I was able to contribute to several Good Articles, such as those on classic theorists (Max Weber, Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim).
- DASonnenfeld: I've been a member of WP:Sociology since 2009. My earliest contributions to Wikipedia's sociology articles related to my primary focus within sociology, environmental sociology. I was interested in helping strengthen Wikipedia's coverage of sociology topics, through identifying and filling in gaps and developing existing articles. I have a PhD in Sociology and work in an interdisciplinary academic setting. I served as a peer reviewer and contributed to the development of the article on sociologist Erving Goffman, a Good Article. DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 02:26, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
- How detailed are Wikipedia's articles about sociological concepts and social problems? Has it been challenging to write articles that are substantive yet accessible to the layperson?
- Meclee: Some articles are incredibly detailed. With some complex theoretical topics, such as the theory of structuration, it can be very difficult to make it accessible to laypersons.
- Piotrus: What Meclee said. We have some very good articles, but like other topics on Wikipedia, those that are high quality are just a tip of the iceberg. The biggest challenge is to be able to cover the "big" topics, one that have hundreds of books written about them. That requires serious expertise and experience, and our little project, with few active editors, is hard pressed to be able to tackle them quickly. With our current workforce, it will take us decades to get just the core topics up to high quality, I am afraid.
- DASonnenfeld: Wikipedia has a lot of articles on sociological topics, but relatively few really well-developed ones. There remains a lot of room for further development, and for creation of new articles on foundational topics in sociology. The largest number of sociology articles might, from my perspective, be considered on "pop(ular) sociology" topics; especially popular are those related to sexuality. My broader focus in sociology is what I would term social change; there are fewer strong articles in Wikipedia on such more abstract topics.
- Are some branches of the discipline better covered by Wikipedia than others? Which topics most desperately need a glance from an expert in the subject?
- Meclee: Sociology is a very broad field that can be applied to any phenomenon in which human interaction plays a part. Wikipedia contents give very good coverage to the most common, popular, and basic areas of research. One area that could use more coverage and more updating of current information is the area of social inequality.
- Piotrus: I think some topics of particular interest to our active members are covered better than others. For example, I am interested in social movements and new media, and those topics are, I'd like to think, a bit above the average due to that. To build on what Meclee said, I am still surprised that the topics related to social inequality are drawing so little attention; for all the press they are getting in media, and professional literature, there are very few Wikipedians working on them.
- For readers discovering sociology for the first time, which articles would you recommend they begin reading? How can non-expert editors contribute to Wikipedia's sociology articles?
- Meclee: The main Sociology article is a very good starting place to learn more about Sociology and its branches of study. The Social research article gives a good overview of methods used in the study of society. Non-specialist editors can always contribute by copy editing articles and checking citations.
- Piotrus: I am not sure if our core articles are good enough to recommend as a good starting place. Sociology is a Good Article, but so many secondary core topics are C class... sigh. Non-experts can help in various places, from copyediting to writing content. What is a non-expert, anyway? A student with minor in sociology can contribute good quality content, too, as a number of Sociology Educational Assignments have shown.
- Is it difficult to find images suitable for sociology articles? What sorts of figures and photographs would be appropriate for articles about concepts and issues in sociology?
- Piotrus: Moderately. Commons has a nice collection of photographs of social settings; what we need the most are probably diagrams, maps and such.
- Does WikiProject Sociology collaborate with any other projects? Are there areas of overlap between sociology and other disciples that could be used as the basis for a collaboration among social science disciplines?
- Meclee: Sociology tends to be a very interdisciplinary enterprise, so it is at least cross-disciplinary with many other fields of study, including economics, geography, ethnography, anthropology, and psychology. So, there are many opportunities for collaboration. The Project could probably benefit from more outreach to other WikiProjects. Two closely related WikiProjects are Wikipedia:WikiProject Globalization and the Wikipedia:WikiProject Sociology/Social movements task force.
- Piotrus: I'd add Wikipedia:WikiProject Psychology and Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBT, considering their activity. But there are many other social science projects that would be applicable; the problem is that most of them are barely active enough to maintain themselves; we don't have the numbers to think about any serious collaboration.
- DASonnenfeld: At the project-level, there does seem to be some ad hoc collaboration between social science and related WikiProjects. With Meclee, I'm a co-founder of WikiProject Globalization, a couple of summers ago. There is some intersection and cooperation between WikiProject Sociology members and other WikiProjects such as WP:Environment and WP:Academic Journals, as well.
- What are the project's most urgent needs? How can a new contributor help today?
- Meclee: The Project's most urgent need is for more active participants who can update and expand our coverage of sociological topics and research findings. We are also in need of participants willing to improve articles through checking citations and converting citations to a standard citation template. We would very much appreciate editors who could help with modernizing and updating the Portal:Sociology. Meclee (talk) 09:19, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
- Piotrus: What Meclee said, through I think that the Portal:Sociology (as all other portals) is a low priority. Who reads them? Google never picks them up. But we could desperately use a few more active members. Five active sociology writers would probably double our activity numbers...
- DASonnenfeld: Much room for contributions at all levels! Contribution of public domain/ commons images and videos can enhance many articles.
- Anything else you'd like to add?
- Piotrus: I am curious if any readers of this article are familiar with the ASA Wikipedia Initiative? In the two years that site has been active, I wonder what impact did it have? Are there any readers of this interview who have joined our WikiProject after learning about it from ASA, for example?
- DASonnenfeld: A 'call out' to the Wikipedia Campus Ambassadors Program, and to instructors who have provided opportunities and training to students to make meaning contributions to improving the quality of articles on Wikipedia. Great effort and thanks for your contributions!
Next week's article should be a special treat. Until then, check out the archive for our previous Reports.
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